Max Mara Art Prize
First Edition
The inaugural Max Mara Art Prize for Women was presented at the British Pavilion in June 2005, during the 51st Venice Art Biennale. The shortlist for the first edition of the prize was announced in September 2005: Anne Hardy, Donna Huddleston, Rachel Kneebone, Margaret Salmon and Anj Smith were the finalists who were asked to present a project that would be produced by the winner. The prize was unanimously awarded to video artist Margaret Salmon.
Margaret Salmon’s six month residency was spent between the American Academy in Rome and the Pistoletto Foundation in Biella, where the artist was able to complete her project. The winning work was announced at the Whitechapel gallery in London in January 2007.
The jury was formed by:
chair: Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London;
members: Jennifer Higgie, editor of Frieze; Victoria Miro, gallery owner; Gillian Wearing, winner of the Turner Prize; Anita Zabludowicz, collector.
The winner
Thirty-year-old Margaret Salmon was born in Suffern NY in the United States but lives in the United Kingdom in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, where her husband was born. She started her career as a video artist at the age of twenty, during her BFA at The School of Visual Arts in New York. Her expressive style is inspired by various moments in the history of cinema: from Neorealism, to New Wave and Cinema Verité.
The winning work
Ninna Nanna is a carefully crafted video triptych, shot in 16mm in colour and black and white, showing three young mothers filmed in their homes singing a never-ending lullaby, a “ninna nanna”, to their babies. The work celebrates the tenacity and the grace of mothers as they go about their daily routines, emphasizing the contradictions between the iconography of moterhood and its reality.
Ninna Nanna is now part of the Maramotti Collection and was selected by Robert Storr for the 52nd Venice Art Biennale. Margaret Salmon has also been nominated for the coveted Vincent Prize.
Stills from Ninna Nanna
Margaret Salmon