Ca’ del Bosco Sculpture Award, the winner artwork enters in the permanent collection in Franciacorta

Wine, art, culture, Renaissance, tradition, innovation, ecology, ethics, courtesy: these are the core values of “Ca’ del Bosco Sculpture Award”, invented by Maurizio Zanella, president of the prestigious brand of Franciacorta – reserved to great outdoor sculptures created by under 40 artists. The winner of 2024 edition, Irene Coppola, with her artwork “handandland” (a poetic track in blown neon), enters to be officially part of the permanent collection of the winery, one of the absolute pioneers in Italy to have launched the duo wine & art, with a widespread art gallery including international artists of the level of Arnaldo Pomodoro, Mimmo Paladino, Igor Mitoraj, Rabarama, Stefano Bombardieri, Cracking Art, Zheng Lu, and Tsuyoshi Tane.
The award arose with two objectives: the first is to reinforce and make the strong bond between art and Ca’ del Bosco, one of the wine realities of excellence in Franciacorta, and protagonist of Ithe talian wine Renaissance, indelible; the second derives from the desire to make the already existing strong relationship with a patronage action institutional, in order to reinforce it with the infinite and imaginative abilities and possibilities of the new artistic generation. Born in 1991 in Palermo, artist Irene Coppola investigates the liminal space between nature and culture, and the display as a political device throughout different media going from sculpture to videos, to environmental installation. The spirals of the writing, from which words “hand and land” emerge, go back to the structure of the tendril typical of climbing plants, such as vine, i.e. the tactile extension allowing it to support itself, and grow beyond the trunk. With this victory, Coppola was awarded with a prize money, as recognition of personal merit, in addition to a sum destined to the expenses for the effective realization of the artwork, which, from now on, will be part of sculpture park of Ca’ del Bosco permanently, entering the winery’s art correction rightly. “First of all, Ca’ del Bosco means listening to nature, and give to its variable forms the possibility to express throughout the help of the man, who is the guardian of an extraordinary territory, cultivating it, and not consuming it – declares Maurizio Zanella, president of Ca’ del Bosco - Irene Coppola has been capable of interpreting the values of Ca’ del Bosco by offering a very modern, and original vision of vine shoot. The support of Venetian Heritage, and, particularly, of its director Toto Bergamo Rossi in the individuation of a quality board, that, in turn, could interpret the dream of Ca’ del Bosco, favored the perfect success of the project”. “It is an honor for me and for the Federation that I represent, having contributed to the success of the first edition of “Ca’ del Bosco Sculpture Award” - affirms Toto Bergamo Rossi, director of Venetian Heritage Foundation - we deal with the preservation, the restoration, and the promotion of the huge Venetian cultural heritage, which constantly needs care and attention. Attentions that have to be paid also to those people who look at contemporary art of our country for their first time. This partnership with Ca’ del Bosco aims to promote young talents giving them visibility and recognizing their work”.
The bond between Ca’ del Bosco and art has arisen since the Seventies, when Maurizio Zanella perceived as deep the connection between wine and artistic imagination, both the result of a magical union between nature, thought, soul and senses. This is why the access to Ca’ del Bosco is by Cancello Solare, an artwork commissioned to Arnaldo Pomodoro in 1985, and positioned in the site in 1993, a circular structure with a 5-meter diameter opening in two bronze semicircles weighing 25,000 kilos each. But this is only the entry door in a world, that, since the first vineyards planted in 1968, was built as an outpost of the Italian wine Renaissance, in which one of the most modern and technological Italian wineries, and a spread art gallery conversing, both indoor and outdoor, with artworks of absolute importance, take place. As, amongst others, “Eroi di luce” by Igor Mitoraj, “Codice Genetico” by Rabarama, “Il peso del tempo sospeso” by Stefano Bombardieri, “Blue Guardians” by Cracking Art, “Water in dripping” by Zheng Lu, “Il Testimone” by Mimmo Paladino, and “Sound of Marble” by Tsuyoshi Tane.
The “Ca’ del Bosco Sculpture Award” was announced in 2023, and the participation to the contest was by invitation of the board. It occurs every two years, and the second edition will be held in two-year-period 2025-2026. The board of the first edition involved personalities representing and managing the resources of the world of art, and of creativity in general: Mario Codognato, director of Berggruen Foundation; Davide Dotti, art critic, and curator of Palazzo Martinengo in Brescia; Arturo Galansino, dg of Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence; Pepi Marchetti Franchi, senior director Gagosian; Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, president of Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation in Turin; Maria Luisa Frisa, fashion theorist, curator, and full professor at Iuav University, in Venice.