Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize #01 c/o Fonderia Artistica Battaglia via Stilicone, 10 20154 – Milano Italy +39 02.341.071 www.bfsculptureprize.com [email protected] www.fonderiabattaglia.com

Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize 2016 Nicolas Deshayes wins the 1st edition of the Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize Milan, May 2016 – The French artist Nicolas Deshayes is the winner of the first Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize 2016, an award for sculpture organized by Fonderia Artistica Battaglia. As an international showcase of emerging creativity, the Prize is an initiative to support excellent artistic practice in the area of bronze sculpture, based on the observation, selection and training of young artists to insert them in the contemporary art system through the production of new works. After in-depth analysis of the five finalist projects on the part of the international Selection Committee, the choice went to the sculptor Nicolas Deshayes (1983, Nancy, France) for his artistic research and technique. The jury composed of three internationally renowned contemporary art professionals and Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, specifically Camilla Bonzanigo (Culture and Development, Fonderia Artistica Battaglia), Martin Clark (Director, Bergen Kunsthall), Alberto Salvadori (Artistic Director, Museo Marino Marini) and Moritz Wesseler (Director, Kolnischer Kunstverein), selected the work Dear Polyp because it contains the vitality to imagine a new technical future of bronze sculpture, using the material as a thermal conductor. Nicolas Deshayes’ work stands out for his original interpretation of the tradition lost wax casting process, one of the most ancient sculpture techniques of all time, which is now attracting renewed interest in the field of contemporary art. The artist starts with polyurethane foam and then directly intervenes on the wax model, in a personal reworking conducted with a detailed and innovative approach. Moreover, unlike the usual coldness of cast metal, the temperature emitted by the finished sculpture, connected by pipes to a water-based system – which heats and cools the work as if it were a living organism – encourages interaction by touching, in a new sensorial approach to the experience of art. The Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize 2016, besides a study grant and an artist’s residency of one month at Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, in June-July 2016, offers Nicolas Deshayes the opportunity to make the proposed work in close collaboration with Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, which will technically monitor all the phases of the whole process.

Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize #01 c/o Fonderia Artistica Battaglia via Stilicone, 10 20154 – Milano Italy +39 02.341.071 www.bfsculptureprize.com [email protected] www.fonderiabattaglia.com

Dear Polyp will be officially presented to the public in Milan in September, in an exhibition of all the projects from the 2016 edition of the Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize. The Prize operates as a true observatory of young talents in contemporary creativity, a sort of challenge for up-and-coming sculptors to come to terms with a very noble technique in the setting of one of the most significant centers of production of bronze sculpture in the history of Italian art. Always careful to interpret the spirit of the times, Fonderia Artistica Battaglia also acts as a true cultural institution, supporting artists, promoting projects in collaboration with the most interesting voices on the national and international art scene, and constantly expanding its network to include public and private museums, artists, curators, galleries, research centers, scientific and technical institutes, operating as a driving force for new ideas in art.

Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize #01 c/o Fonderia Artistica Battaglia via Stilicone, 10 20154 – Milano Italy +39 02.341.071 www.bfsculptureprize.com [email protected] www.fonderiabattaglia.com

Dear Polyp Plated bronze, copper water pipes, hot water. By Nicolas Deshayes The winning work, which will be made in collaboration with Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, is a patinated bronze sculpture that will be connected by pipes to a water-based system that warms and cools it like a living organism. The wax model for the sculpture will be made starting with a mock-up in polyurethane foam. The wax will be heated and shaped by three-dimensional twists, making it resemble a knotted digestive system or an intestinal Möbius strip. Cast in bronze, the work will be crossed by a flexible hydraulic tube inserted in its cavity and connected by valves to a water boiler, very similar to a standard radiator. The gurgling water passing through the pipes inside the sculpture will quickly heat the metal surface. Bronze, in fact, is an alloy made of 87% copper, a metal that is a good heat conductor. The project is the result of Nicolas Deshayes’ interest in the cycles of matter, organic and inorganic, and the processes involved, from industrial to bodily and vice versa. Deshayes likes to use shapes and materials that can be simultaneously seductive and disturbing. Dear Polyp is a dense sculpture, similar to a tumor but also soft and voluptuous, a reminder of rippling fabrics or the soft forms of Baroque art. The green and gold finish will suggest oxidation or bodily erosion. This proposal is the result of a recent series of works entitled Darling, Gutter, a group of Jesmonite reliefs connected by tubes to the heating system of the gallery. What Nicolas Deshayes wants to create is a sculpture in the round that can be placed indoors or outdoors, where the sudden shifts of temperature can achieve the desired effect.

Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize #01 c/o Fonderia Artistica Battaglia via Stilicone, 10 20154 – Milano Italy +39 02.341.071 www.bfsculptureprize.com [email protected] www.fonderiabattaglia.com

Nicolas Deshayes Nicolas Deshayes (1983, Nancy, France) lives and works in London. He studied Sculpture at the Chelsea College of Art and Design (2002-2005) and the Royal College of Art (2007-2009). Recent solo shows include: Darling, Gutter, Glasgow Sculpture Studios, 2015; Becoming Soil, Jonathan Viner Gallery, London, 2015 and Crude Oil, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, 2013. In 2015 he showed at Tate St. Ives, UK; Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany; Leeds City Art Gallery, UK and Koppe Astner, Glasgow, UK. He is presently included in the British Art Show 8 at Inverleith House, Edinburgh, UK; coming solo shows will be opened in August 2016 at the Modern Art in London, and in September at Galerie Sultana, Paris. Selected artists Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize 2016 • JULIEN CREUZET 1986, France • NICOLAS DESHAYES 1983, France • ALICIA FRANKOVICH 1980, New Zealand • RODRIGO HERNANDEZ 1983, Mexico • NICOLAS PARTY 1981, Switzerland

Selection committee Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize 2016 • GIOVANNI CARMINE Director, Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen • MARIE COZETTE Director, La Synagogue de Delme • MIHNEA MIRCAN Art critic and independent curator • CHRIS SHARP Art critic and independent curator • ROBERTA TENCONI Curator, HangarBicocca

Jury Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize 2016 • CAMILLA BONZANIGO Culture and Development, Fonderia Artistica Battaglia • MARTIN CLARK Director, Bergen Kunsthall • ALBERTO SALVADORI Artistic Director, Museo Marino Marini • MORITZ WESSELER Director, Kölnischer Kunstverein

Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize #01 c/o Fonderia Artistica Battaglia via Stilicone, 10 20154 – Milano Italy +39 02.341.071 www.bfsculptureprize.com [email protected] www.fonderiabattaglia.com

Fonderia Artistica Battaglia For over a century, Fonderia Artistica Battaglia has been working with one of the oldest production processes in the world, invented about 3,500 years ago: lost wax casting. This technique was developed over the course of the millennia, but still today the fundamental ingredient is the professional skill of the artisans in the foundry. Their work has been used to give visual expression to the political, spiritual and social convictions of civilizations from the distant past right up until the present day. The most important sculptors of Italy, and many foreign artists, have worked with Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, founded in 1913. Space would never be sufficient to list all the famous artists who have chosen Battaglia to cast their pieces, but we can mention some of the works that have become familiar to the general public. The Foundry, a point of excellence in Milan, cast the doors of Milan Cathedral designed by Castiglioni; the Cristo degli Abissi (the submerged Christ) by Guido Galletti; many works by Arnaldo Pomodoro; the bronze horse that is the symbol for Italy’s TV network RAI, and many others. You could say that the history of Italian art has a close relationship with the foundry, and likewise the history of Italy. The soldiers who fell on the battlefields of Montegrappa, Timavo, Caporetto and Redipuglia rest under the shadows of bronze statues cast by Fonderia Artistica Battaglia. This link with funerary art comes as no surprise, because Fonderia Artistica Battaglia created many of the masterpieces in Milan’s historic Monumental Cemetery, one of the city’s most evocative locations. Fonderia Artistica Battaglia has given expression to some of the most important Italian and international artists, including Marino Marini, KenGiro Azuma, Alighiero Boetti and Giuseppe Penone, all benefiting from the experience and skilful hands of the Foundry’s artisans. The company continues in its commitment to art by supporting new generations of artists, amongst whom Francesco Arena, Giorgio Andreotta Calò and Peter Waechtler.