Time for Women! Empowering Visions in 20 Years of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women
From 17 April to 31 August 2025, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and Collezione Maramotti present Time for Women! Empowering Visions in 20 Years of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. This special exhibition celebrates, in the spaces of the Strozzina at Palazzo Strozzi, the twentieth anniversary of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women – one of the most important awards supporting women-identified artists – and the long collaboration between Max Mara, Whitechapel Gallery and Collezione Maramotti, through the works of the nine artists who have won the award since 2005.
The show will feature: Margaret Salmon (b. 1975 in Suffern, NY); Hannah Rickards (b. 1979 in London, UK); Andrea Büttner (b. 1972 in Stuttgart, Germany); Laure Prouvost (b. 1978 in Lille, France); Corin Sworn (b. 1976 in London, UK); Emma Hart (b. 1974 in Carshalton, UK); Helen Cammock (b. 1970 in Staffordshire, UK); Emma Talbot (b. 1969 in Stourbridge, UK) and Dominique White (b. 1993 in Rochford, UK).
Organized by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and Collezione Maramotti, Time for Women! Empowering Visions will unfold through the fascinating spaces of the Strozzina, paying homage to two decades of female creativity and innovation and plunging visitors into a range of different media and artistic visions.
For the first time in one place, the exhibition presents the projects that the nine artists developed during the long Italian residency that is at the heart of the prize. With videos, installations, sculptures, and wall pieces, the exhibition is a journey thorough the award’s twenty-years history of the prize and the work of figures who were just emerging at the time they were selected, but have gone on to become renowned names on the broader international art scene. Starting with broader themes such as identity, memory, the body, society, and politics, each of these artists zeroed in on specific aspects connected to her research and experiences in Italy: commedia dell’arte, motherhood, the contemporary idea of the Grand Tour, artisan traditions, mythology, monastic communities, the natural landscape, or history, all the way to the recovery of forgotten voices and narratives from ancient times and up to the present.
The Mara Art Prize for Women is a biennial prize for women-identified artists, founded in 2005 by the Max Mara Fashion Group and organized in partnership with Whitechapel Gallery. Collezione Maramotti came on board as the third partner in 2007. It was the first visual arts award for emerging women artists based in the UK, aimed at supporting and promoting their work at a crucial stage in their career by offering the time and space to create an ambitious new project. Selected by an all-female jury of leading female figures from the British art world, the winners were awarded a six- month residency in Italy, organized by Collezione Maramotti and tailored to their professional and personal needs. During their stay, the artists immersed themselves in the general context of the country; they investigated specific cultural and historical topics, cultivated new technical skills and created new works that became part of the final two-stage exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery in London and Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, which acquired works from all the winning projects over the years. In recognition of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women’s unique and outstanding support for the creative process, it was singled out for the British Council Arts & Business International Award in 2007.
The exhibition is organized by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and Collezione Maramotti.
Main supporter: Max Mara.
Special thanks to Whitechapel Gallery
