Davide Monteleone
"Spasibo"

Exhibition: 24 May - 21 June 2014

The Spasibo exhibition by Davide Monteleone, winner of the fourth Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award, will run from 24 May to 21 June 2014 at the Studio Museo Francesco Messina in Milan.

Taken as part of Davide Monteleone’s Chechnya project, the photographs were exhibited at the Chapelle des Beaux-Arts in Paris in November 2013.

The Carmignac Foundation has established a partnership with the Municipality of Milan to contribute to the renovation of Studio Museo Francesco Messina by financing its new visual identity. This partnership reflects the Carmignac Foundation’s aim to establish strong links with the institutions hosting its exhibitions. This is also the case with the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt in Germany, which was reopened to the public in May 2014.

Spasibo by Davide Monteleone

The theme proposed to photographers for this fourth edition was Chechnya. The Italian photographer Davide Monteleone has chosen to illustrate the threat to Chechen identity concealed beneath the appearance of calm and prosperity adroitly maintained by the autocratic regime of Ramzan Kadyrov. He spent the period from December 2012 to April 2013 in the country.

A book of photographs from the report, Spasibo, was published by Kehrer Verlag (164 pages).

Davide Monteleone

Davide Monteleone (born in 1974) started his career in 2000, when he became an editorial photographer for the Contrasto agency. The next year he moved to Moscow as a correspondent. This decision determined his ensuing career. Since 2003, Monteleone has lived between Italy and Russia, pursuing long-term personal projects. He published his first book Dusha, Russian Soul in 2007, followed by La Linea Inesistente in 2009, and Red Thistle in 2012. His projects have brought him numerous awards, including various World Press Photo prizes and several grants like “Aftermath” and the European Publisher Award. In recent years he has carried out projects for leading international magazines, foundations and cultural institutions, exhibiting and teaching. Since 2011 Davide has been a member of VII Photo.

Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award

Five years of free speech and artistic creativity

The Carmignac Foundation launched the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award in 2009 with the aim of supporting and promoting investigative photojournalism in areas not in the spotlight yet at the heart of complex geostrategic conflict with global repercussions and where human rights and freedom of speech are often violated. Regions such as Gaza, Pashtunistan, Zimbabwe and Chechnya were the locations selected for the first awards. Iran was chosen for the fifth award.

With a prize set at 50,000 Euros, this award aims to fund in-depth photographic report that reflects the complexity of the current situation. The Carmignac Foundation undertakes to support the winner throughout the project by monitoring his/her progress in the field as well as promoting and running a touring exhibition in France, Italy, Germany and the UK and financing a monograph. The Carmignac Foundation also commits to buying four photographs resulting from the winner’s endeavours.

In keeping with the values of courage, independence, transparency and sharing held dear by staff at Carmignac Gestion, the Carmignac Foundation is committed to championing the views of involved individuals that are far from the standard blueprint.

Carmignac Foundation

Created in 2000, the Carmignac Foundation has its roots in Carmignac Gestion’s corporate collection, which has been on display in the management company’s premises from the start. Built up over the past twenty-five years with an open mind and no restrictions, this unique compendium of contemporary art reflects the personal favourites of Carmignac Gestion’s founder, Edouard Carmignac, a seasoned fund manager and stockbroker. The Carmignac collection currently boasts nearly 200 works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries, including major ones by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Gerhard Richter. Selected on the basis of how evocative they are, the quality of their composition and how powerful a message they convey, the most recent additions to the collection show a strong emphasis on emerging market countries.

The Carmignac Foundation has always been committed to sharing and open to dialogue with the widest possible audience. In keeping with that commitment, the Foundation, headed by Gaïa Donzet, plans to open new premises in 2016 on the protected island of Porquerolles. Architect Marc Barani and landscape architect Louis Benech will be designing the site in a way that fully respects this stunning natural environment and meets the rigorous building permit requirements. A programme of on-site sculpture commissions by young international artists has been launched in order to integrate contemporary art into an extraordinary setting that can both enhance the viewing experience and help make a new generation of artists better known.