The 75th edition of the Michetti Prize in the sign of Italo Calvino. "6 memos for the next millennium" is the title of the 2024 edition of the Michetti Prize, among the longest-running and most prestigious Italian contemporary art awards. The new edition is curated by Simone Ciglia, art historian and career instructor at the University of Oregon. There will be five artists competing: Stefano Arienti, Elisabetta Benassi, Claire Fontaine, Paolo Icaro, Eugenio Tibaldi, whose works will be inspired by the six key concepts of Italo Calvino's famous American Lessons: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency. A special section of the exhibition, out of competition, will be dedicated to the works of Giulio Paolini, one of the artists closest to the writer.

"The 75th edition of the Michetti Prize - explains Andrea Lombardinilo, president of the Michetti Foundation - aims to make a mark and Italo Calvino is the perfect inspiration for it. The Foundation celebrates three-quarters of a century of the Prize with artists of absolute importance, selected by Simone Ciglia. The Prize will be accompanied by the exhibition of works owned by the Foundation, including many of the winning works from past editions. The Michetti Foundation continues its journey in contemporary art, between tradition and innovation."

Calvino as an inspiration
The 2024 edition takes inspiration from the Norton Lectures that Italo Calvino had been invited to give at Harvard in 1985. The writer had planned to structure his intervention around six notions that he defined as "values or qualities or specificities of literature" (in the original English memos). Thus Simone Ciglia: "The next millennium for Calvino has become our present and the writer's proposals confirm their relevance, going beyond the privileged scope of his discourse - the literary one - to encompass the artistic phenomenon in a broader sense. The memos appear as useful categories for observing contemporary art as well, and on the occasion of the seventy-fifth edition of the Michetti Prize, it seemed generative to apply them to the present creative landscape. The exhibition 6 memos for the next millennium is thus structured according to Calvino's proposals, each
represented by contemporary artists of different generations and backgrounds".