On November 4, 2023, on the occasion of Artissima 30th edition, the Tosetti Value Photography Award has been assigned to Kiluanji Kia Henda.
Artissima reconfirms itself among the most significant international events for contemporary art. The 30th edition, directed by Luigi Fassi, ended with a visitor turnout of 34,000, exceeding the figure for previous editions.
The fourth edition of the Tosetti Value Prize for Photography, supported by Tosetti Value The Family office and established in 2020, to investigate the relationship between art and economics by expanding the current comprehension of reality, took place in this atmosphere of great satisfaction. The jury, composed by Walter Guadagnini, director, CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la fotografia, Torino, Salvatore Vitale, artistic director, Futures Photography, Amsterdam and Elena Volpato, conservator, GAM – Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna, Torino, identified Kiluanji Kia Henda, presented by Fonti Gallery in Naples, as the winner of the fourth edition of the Tosetti Value Photography Award, “recognizing in his photographic work the ability to become an interpreter of the current international sociopolitical situation, starting with the conflicts caused by the exploitation of fossil fuels. Conflicts arising from the long history and complex political dynamics of the final decades of the Cold War and, even further back, from the time of the long colonial season. In the works-born in the aftermath of the Civil War that marked his country for decades (1975 – 2002) – the connecting lines of pipelines end up ideally uniting territories that have been on opposite sides of history such as Portugal and Angola. The jury recognized in the artist, the ability to deal with these themes with the humorous freedom and imaginative lightness of a tale in images where photography does not become a document but the site of a fertile paradox: alien figures of silver mannequins seem to project to an unknown dimension the weight of responsibility and guilt. Similarly, Angolan intellectuals appear portrayed as they balance, with something of bravery, on oil pipelines, as if riding the lines of the changing world, or as they pose, with disenchanted pride, next to old fuel drums. This linguistic reversal, with which Kiluanji Kia Henda returns the iconography of the conqueror to the sender, is one of the most interesting and at the same time disorienting aspects that the long and necessary journey of postcolonial thought can offer us today”.
The Award is in close relationship with “Perspectives. The Economy of Images,” a platform focused on contemporary photography established in 2014 and curated by Tosetti Value for Art with the aim of promoting debates and reflections on our globalized world through exhibitions and talks in synergy with the Family office’s macroeconomic research. The winning artist, in addition to a cash award, has the opportunity to develop a project in collaboration with Tosetti Value. The project leads to the acquisition of a work for the Family office Corporate Collection. The first edition of the Tosetti Value Photography Award was assigned to Raed Yassin, presented by the gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai; the second was won by Fatma Bucak, presented by the gallery Peola Simondi, Torino; Oroma Elewa, presented by the gallery In Situ – Fabienne Leclerc, Parigi, is the winner of the third edition.
Photo courtesy: © Perottino-Piva-Peirone / Artissima
