Ariane de Rothschild
President of the Ariane de Rothschild Foundation and initiator of the prize
Message from Ariane de Rothschild
Vice President
Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo began collecting contemporary art in the early 1990s and in 1995 transformed her passion into an “organized” activity by creating the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, of which she is President. When she started collecting art in 1992, she focused her attention on young Italian and foreign artists. Traveling to visit exhibitions, museums, galleries and artists’ workshops, she took stock of the contemporary art world and watched as new productions emerged. The Collection quickly developed based on a clear method, with works (created from the 1980s to today) organized by theme: English art, Italian art, women’s art, Los Angeles art, and photography. Although the Collection was exclusively private from 1992 to 1995, a first exhibition was organized for the public in 1994, bringing together 16 British artists including Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor and Julian Opie. The event was held in an industrial space in Sant’Antonino di Susa near Turin.
The Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation was officially founded in Turin on 6 April 1995. The same year, Francesco Bonami designed the Foundation’s cultural program. Through encounters and exchanges with new generations of artists and art professionals internationally, the program quickly became an observatory on the research and production of today’s most exciting avant-garde art.
The Foundation’s primary aim is to introduce an ever-growing public to the most recent trends in contemporary art internationally. The vast field of visual arts – painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation and performance – is analyzed and presented to the public not only through the exhibitions, but also through a range of educational activities and side events to explore topics in greater depth, including lectures, encounters with artists, curators and critics from leading institutions in Italy and beyond. Contemporary art courses are also taught by renowned professors from Italian universities.
The Foundation is a versatile structure where the contributions of artists, critics, curators and collectors come together, a place where art lovers and specialists can bring themselves up to date and newcomers to the field can learn more about contemporary art.
Francesco Bonami is in charge of Artistic Direction at the Foundation and Filippo Maggia oversees the Italian photography section.
Members
Richard Armstrong, Directeur, Guggenheim Museum, NYC
Richard Armstrong, 61, was the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh since 1996. His appointment at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation comes after an extensive international search.
As director of both the Foundation and the Foundation's flagship Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Richard Armstrong will focus on the pivotal role of the New York museum while also providing leadership and management for the four other institutions in the Guggenheim network: the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum, scheduled to open in 2014.
Prior to his appointment as director of the Carnegie Museum, Richard Armstrong served four years as chief curator and curator of contemporary art there. From 1981 to 1992, he was a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he organized biennials and exhibitions. He also served as a curator at La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California.
Richard Armstrong, who grew up in Kansas City, MO, graduated from Lake Forest College in Illinois with a Bachelor of Arts. He also studied at the Université de Paris, Sorbonne, and the Université de Dijon.
Henri-Claude Cousseau, Director, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris
Born in 1946, Henry-Claude Cousseau, Conservateur général du patrimoine, became Director of L’Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris on 1st September 2000.
As Director of L'Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Henry-Claude Cousseau undertook a substantial reorganization of the school and its missions, implementing the European higher education curricular reform, which today is complete. He built up the school’s international reputation considerably. He also revamped communications and publications concerning the School’s collections and initiated a project to restore school buildings classified as historical monuments.
Prior to taking up his current post, Henry-Claude Cousseau held the following positions: Curator, Musées de la Vendée (1973-1976); Curator, Musée de l'Abbaye Sainte-Croix des Sables d'Olonne (1976-1982); 20th century Curator with the Inspection générale des Musées de Province, Direction des musées de France (1982-1985); Director, Musée des beaux-arts de Nantes; Director, Musées de la ville de Nantes (1985-1994); Chef de l'Inspection générale des Musées de France (1994-1996); Director, capcMusée d'art contemporain in Bordeaux; and Director, Musées de Bordeaux (1996-2000).
Throughout his career and in the various posts he has held, Henry-Claude Cousseau has organized over 100 exhibitions in France and internationally. In 1995, on behalf of the French Association for Artistic Action (AFAA), he was the curator of the first French contemporary art exhibition in India at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi (Seuils), which featured works by Christian Boltanski, Pierre Buraglio, Bernard Frize, Annette Messager, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Sarkis and others. At the Musée des beaux-arts in Nantes, he organized several major exhibitions such as “Depuis Matisse... la couleur” in 1985, “Picasso, jeunesse et genèse” in 1991, “Le rêve d'une ville, Nantes et le Surréalisme” in 1994, and “L'Avant-garde russe, chefs-d'oeuvre des musées de Russie” in 1993.
At the capcMusée d'art contemporain in Bordeaux, he showed the works of many contemporary American and English-speaking artists, including Toni Oursler in 1997, Cindy Sherman in 1999 and Jenny Holzer in 2001. The programming policy he developed was open to cosmopolitan issues and topical themes, with exhibitions such as “Cities on the Move, contemporary art in Asia” and the “Anish Kapoor” exhibition, both held in 1998.
In the exhibition galleries of L’Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, he was the curator of “Indian Summer” in 2005, devoted to the young art scene in India. He established an exhibition policy combining heritage (with exhibitions such as “Le dessin en France au XVIIème siècle” in 2001, “Dieux et mortels, les thèmes homériques” in 2004, and “Figures du corps, une leçon d’anatomie à l’Ecole des beaux-arts” in 2008) and contemporary art, devoting particular attention to the young and emerging art scene internationally.
In 2007, he was curator of the “Luce di Pietra” exhibition at the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, featuring French and Italian contemporary artists such as Claude Lévêque, Laurent Grasso, Giovanni Anselmo, and Janis Kounellis.
As an art historian and curator, Henry-Claude Cousseau has written a number of books and articles on the history of 20th century art, such as L'oeuvre graphique de Gaston Chaissac (Ed. Jacques Damase, Paris, 1982) and Daniel Dezeuze (Ed. SMI, Paris, 1989). In 1992, he received the Odilon Redon Prize from the city of Bordeaux for his essay on Jean Hélion (Editions du Regard, Paris). In 2005, he published a collection of essays from the period 1976 - 2004 entitled La Nuit claire (Ed. Jacqueline Chambon, Paris).
Henry-Claude Cousseau is a Knight of the Legion of Honor, a member of the National Order of Merit, and an Officer of Arts and Letters. He is a member of the acquisitions committee of the Louvre Museum (since 2000) and of the Guimet Museum of Asian Art (since 2010). He is Honorary President of the Les Arts Florissants, a Baroque music ensemble of which he was a founding member, having also served as its president. From 2000 to 2006, he sat on the board of directors of the Villa Médicis and from 1990 to 2000 was a member of the Franco-German High Cultural Council. He received the French National Grand Prix des Musées in 1991.
Adam Budak, Curator, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria
Budak lives in Graz and Krakow, and is currently curator for contemporary art at the Kunsthaus Graz am Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria’s oldest museum. He studied theatre studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and history and philosophy of art and architecture at the Central European University in Prague. He has recently co-established the postgraduate studies programme in curatorial practice and theory at the Art History Institute of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Adam Budak has curated “Architectures: Metastructures of Humanity, Morphic Strategies of Exposure”, exhibition in the Polish Pavilion of the 9th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, 2004. Budak co-curated two editions of Prague Biennale (2003, 2005). He worked with acclaimed artists such as Louise Bourgeois, John Baldessari, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Diana Thater, Maria Lassnig, Cerith Wyn Evans and Monika Sosnowska, and has curated a large number of international exhibitions. Recent projects include “Il Grande Ritratto” (a solo show of Tatiana Trouve) and “Human Condition. Empathy and Emancipation in Precarious Times” (a group show with, amongst others, Susan Philipsz, Mark Manders, Renzo Martens, and Kris Martin). Budak was one of the curators of Manifesta7 with the large-scale exhibition “Principle Hope” (2008, Italy).
He frequently contributes critical texts for various catalogues and anthologies. He edited two volumes of “What Is Architecture?”, anthology of texts on theory and practice of contemporary architecture (Krakow, 2004, 2008).
Mark Lewis, Artist and research professor at Central St Martin, London
Born in Ontario in 1957, Mark Lewis is an artist who lives and works in London.
Solo Exhibitions include: the Vancouver Art Gallery (Canada), Hamburger Kunstverein (Germany), Musée d’art Moderne (Luxembourg), BFI Southbank (London) and Museo Marino Marini (Italy), Forte di Bard (Italy). In 2009 Mark represented Canada at the 53rd Venice Biennale with his exhibition Cold Morning. Lewis’ films have been shown at a number of International film festivals including: Rotterdam International Film Festival 2010 (The Netherlands), Toronto International Film Festival 2009 (Canada) and Berlin International Film Festival 2010 (Germany).
Francesco Vezzoli, Italian artist, NYC
Francesco Vezzoli was born in 1971, in Brescia, Italy. He studied at the Central St. Martin's School of Art in London from 1992 to 1995. He currently lives and works in Milan. Vezzoli has had solo shows in several major venues including Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Museu Serralves, Porto; Fondazione Prada, Milan and Le Consortium, Dijon. His works have also been included in several biennials such as the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the 49th and 51st Venice Biennials, the 26th São Paulo Biennial; the 6th International Istanbul Biennial; and in group shows at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Tate Liverpool; and the Migros Museum, Zurich. The Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills exhibition in 2006 marks Vezzoli's first with Gagosian.