Max Mara Celebrates 20 Years of Women's Art Prize with Florence Exhibition

Max Mara and the Whitechapel Gallery in London launched a prize in 2005 for female artists residing in Britain, when women's market share in art was barely 2% and Art Basel featured only a quarter of female artists. The prize offered a six-month residency in Italy rather than cash, leading to original projects linking Anglo-Saxon training with Italian tradition. An all-female jury, chaired by Iwona Blazwick, selected winners. Twenty years later, Max Mara celebrates with the exhibition "Time for Women" at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, organized with Collezione Maramotti. The show features works by past winners including Laure Prouvost, Corin Sworn, Andrea Büttner, Helen Cammock, Margaret Salmon, Dominique White, Hanna Rickards, Emma Talbot, and Emma Hart. Margaret Salmon's first-edition winning work "Ninna nanna fiorentina" is a triple-screen video installation about young mothers, echoing neorealist cinema and Florentine sacred art. Andrea Büttner's project focused on renunciation and poverty inspired by monastic communities near Assisi. Laure Prouvost's 2013 installation centered on a film about sensory pleasures of Italy. The exhibition is held in the Strozzina basement spaces, which some feel insufficient for the scope of the anniversary. It coincides with a Tracey Emin solo show, highlighting the legacy of Young British Artists. The catalog (Marsilio) includes interviews and essays by Mariuccia Casadio.