LONDON.- Whitechapel Gallery announced Caterina Avataneo as the winner of the 2017 NEON Curatorial Award.

For the annual NEON Curatorial Award, emerging curators are invited by the Gallery to devise an exhibition proposal drawing from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection, which includes over 500 contemporary artworks by 220 leading international and Greek artists. For this year’s Award proposals were submitted by aspiring curators from Greece, as well as students and alumni from the following Masters programmes: Curating the Contemporary, London Metropolitan University and Whitechapel Gallery; Curating the Art Museum, Courtauld Institute of Art; Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, and Curating, Goldsmiths College.

Caterina Avataneo received the award from Dimitris Daskalopoulos for her submission proposal, And Yet They are Knocking at the Door, at a ceremony held at the Whitechapel Gallery this evening, Thursday 14 December.

Avataneo’s proposed exhibition, And Yet They are Knocking at the Door, takes its title of the same name from a short story (1942) by Italian author Dino Buzzati. Bringing together works from 13 artists from the D.Daskalopulos Collection including Giovanni Anselmo; Mona Hatoum; Jenny Holzer; Cindy Sherman; Rebecca Warren and Rachel Whiteread, the exhibition addresses notions of human existential anxiety, death, paradox and fate.

Set in The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery, the show makes strategic use of the peculiarities of the space and its proximity to the river in order to evoke the sounds and setting of the story. By forging links between visual and literary works the show aims to present a bilateral exchange of meanings and stimulate fresh interpretations of these materials in an immersive environment.

The proposed exhibition will be accompanied by a publication featuring contributing texts from Vincenzo Latronico, the D. Daskalopoulos Collection, The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery and the curator.

As part of Avataneo’s imagined project, she has devised an extensive public programme including a series of readings, lectures and sound performances.

The judging panel for the 2017 NEON Curatorial Award are: Ben Eastham, Editor of The White Review; Nadia Schneider Willen, Collections Curator at Migros, Zurich; Tina Sotiriadi, independent curator, H+S Projects; chaired by Dr. Nayia Yiakoumaki, Curator Archive Gallery, Head of Curatorial Studies and Project Manager of NEON Curatorial Exchange & Award.

Of the winning proposal the judging panel commented: "Caterina Avataneo’s proposal And Yet They are Knocking at the Door is poetic, innovative, and well articulated. Her departure point - Dino Buzzati’s 1942 short story Eppure battono alla porta (and yet they are knocking at the door) - is evocative of the social, political and environmental contemporary realities we face, while the selection of artists and the choice of The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery as venue are sensitive and precise. Avataneo brings together celebrated and lesser-known works in ways that would create a compelling exhibition.”

Elina Kountouri, Director of NEON said: “I am consistently impressed by the amount of thought, passion and originality presented to us by the participants of the NEON Curatorial Award. Now in its fifth year, the Award continues NEON and the Whitechapel’s commitment with developing cross cultural dialogue, and using contemporary culture as a powerful tool to educate and inspire. Caterina’s proposal struck a perfect balance between the visual and literary world, reaching out to ideas of continuity, mortality and memory.”

The NEON Curatorial Award was established in 2012 to champion curatorial excellence, and is part of an ongoing partnership between the Whitechapel Gallery and NEON, a non-profit organisation in Athens. Building links between emerging curators in London and across Greece, the prize celebrates the exchange of ideas and innovations in the presentation of contemporary art.

Having recently graduated in Curating at Whitechapel Gallery (MA, 2017), Avataneo develops and realises independent curatorial projects while also working at White Cube. Prior to this she worked at The Sunday Painter Gallery, Kunstraum and Whitechapel Gallery and with art organisations in Italy such as Norma Mangione Gallery and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. Recently curated projects include ‘Performing Objects’ at Kunstraum, London (2017), ‘One and Other’ at Zabludowicz Colection, London (2017), and a series of solo shows under the name ‘onepointfiveone’ at Window Space Gallery, London (2017, Feb.-July).