The jury considered it appropriate to assign a special lifetime achievement award

“The idea of the award stems from the observation of the undoubted quality of the finalists, as well as from the importance of the selected artists. Some of them in fact have a remarkable curriculum. The lifetime achievement award appears therefore as a prize that is independent from the competition, covering the artist’s entire activity and its particular significance in the context of the current art scene.

The prize is awarded to Valeria Gramiccia, an artist who lived from the inside out and with absolute importance the Italian artistic milieu of the last decades, both creatively and historically. She has collaborated in the scientific and organizational care of exhibitions and events of international importance. She was an assistant to the great contemporary masters. Today she represents one of the most consistent and refined testimonies of Italian art. Her registry is characterized by a light and safe mark, particularly in graphic art, including abstract articulation and dreamlike dimension, with a precious use of the color. She stands out simultaneously in the wake of the happiest tradition of the post-war abstract expressionism and a cultured conceptual art, developed as a reflection of a rare and poetic expression.”
(from the minutes of the jury)