Michele Coppola for Gallerie D’Italia wins the Allegrini Prize ‘L’Arte di mostrare l’Arte’ 2022
Michele Coppola, Executive Director of Art, Culture and Historical Heritage at Intesa Sanpaolo and Director of the Gallerie d’Italia is the winner of the Allegrini Prize ‘The Art of Exhibiting Art’ 2022, now in its tenth edition. The award ceremony was held yesterday, Tuesday 13th December at Villa Della Torre, in Fumane di Valpolicella (Verona).
“We want to reward the quality work that he has conducted at the Gallerie d’Italia by fully integrating into the Culture Project the social responsibility that Intesa Sanpaolo wanted to actively put into practice in its museum and cultural center, which is divided into 4 locations housed in prestigious buildings in the city center in Milan, Naples, Turin and Vicenza. In addition to the collections on permanent display, with a selection of over 35,000 proprietary works of art, the Gallerie d’Italia periodically hosts temporary exhibitions stemming from original scientific projects in partnership with the most prestigious museums in the world. Added to this is a rich program of activities and events made up of conferences, musical events, book presentations, educational projects and informational events” explains Giancarlo Mastella, Director of Villa Della Torre and member of the Jury.
The Allegrini Prize is an award that the Verona-based company presents annually to curators and personalities in the art and culture sector who, through their exceptional vision and research, create original and immersive exhibition itineraries. In 2022, the award aims to pay tribute to the cultural and artistic commitment that a private company has developed towards the community. By sharing its artistic and architectural assets with its reference communities and geographical areas, in addition to developing a high-profile system of exhibitions, Intesa Sanpaolo concretely stimulates the cultural and civil development of the entire country, as well as the protection of its precious heritage.
“In this context, we also want to acknowledge Intesa Sanpaolo’s important commitment to safeguarding works of art, with the Restituzioni project which, since its inception in 1989, on the restoration of public and private assets, and is curated in collaboration with the ministerial safeguarding bodies. In just over 30 years, over 2000 works have been restored and having achieved this result, Restituzioni has become a bulwark in the invaluable task of safeguarding Italy’s artistic heritage” stated the Jury.
“There is no art without enterprise and there is no enterprise without art. I have always been deeply convinced of the indispensability of this combination, and this edition of our Prize is further confirmation. Whether we are talking about individuals or about the whole community, it is clear that there can be no growth, inclusion and social dialogue without art and culture. They represent an absolute means of understanding and interpretation of society, a precious tool for everyone, but primarily for the new generations who will forge the future”, comments Marilisa Allegrini, Order of Merit for Labor and CEO of Allegrini.
“I welcome the prestigious prize awarded to me with pleasure, thanks to the Gallerie d’Italia, which is the outcome of the initial vision of Professor Giovanni Bazoli and the decisive conviction of the top management of Intesa Sanpaolo. We believe firmly in this project, which is recognized as mirror-image of our identity. In the current focus on civil responsibility, we have transformed valuable proprietary buildings into places dedicated to art and culture, making even more explicit the role and work carried out by the leading Italian banking group also in the social and cultural sector” says Michele Coppola, director of the Gallerie d’Italia.
In the past nine editions of ‘The Art of exhibiting Art’ the curators of the following exhibitions have been awarded the Prize: “Pietro Bembo e l’invenzione del Rinascimento” by Davide Gasparotto, Adolfo Tura and Guido Beltramini; Paola Marini and Bernard Aikema for “Paolo Veronese: l’illusione della realtà”; Salvatore Settis, Rem Koolhaas and Fondazione Prada for the exhibition Serial/Portable Classic; Luca Massimo Barbero for “Da Kandinsky a Pollock. La grande arte dei Guggenheim” at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence; Maria Luisa Pacelli, director of the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara; Xavier Salomon, curator of the Frick Collection in New York; Arte Sella, an open-air exhibition space in Borgo Valsugana; Marzia Faietti and Matteo Lafranconi, for “Raffaello 1520 – 1483”, which was held at the Scuderie del Quirinale, and David Landau for “Le Stanze del Vetro”.