Lorenza Longhi

Treat Yourself to a Break was the title of Lorenza Longhi's 2021 solo exhibition at Galerie Weiss Falk, Basel. The invitation was meant seriously: alongside Longhi's large-format screen prints, several benches scattered around the gallery invited visitors to relax after enjoying the art. As a result, the audience was immediately part of a sophisticated game with the conventions of exhibiting. Longhi had realised these benches as sculptural settings in the space with the dual purpose of art and utility object.

For the exhibition at the Kunst Museum Winterthur, Lorenza Longhi will realise a new series of screen prints that are integrated into the architecture, as it were. Her works oscillate between pop art and minimalism and often show abstract flowers with camera lenses piercing the centre of the blossom - an allusion to surveillance capitalism and the omnipresent consumer culture. The flower motif refers to Andy Warhol, but perhaps even more to Elaine Sturtevant's critical reinterpretation of Andy Warhol's images. Longhi combines the seemingly precise, industrial printing technique with visible irregularities in the application of colour. She usually uses an unframed screen printing mesh as a printing tool and stencil. These imperfections serve as a deliberate disruption to the perfection of the medium and question the value of originality and luxury of the artistic object, thus combining the tradition of the "institutional critique" of the 1990s with the do-it-yourself strategies of the present, as revealed in the often seemingly careless reconstructions of furniture classics such as USM Haller office shelves. Oscillating between homage and persiflage, they deconstruct everyday conventions and monocultures as well as questions of taste and social prestige.

Lorenza Longhi, born in Lecco, Italy, in 1991, studied at the Brera in Milan and the ECAL in Lausanne. Her work has been shown in various institutional solo exhibitions in recent years, including at the Kunstverein Freiburg (2025), Swiss Institute New York (2024) and the Kunsthalle Zürich (2021). The artist lives and works in Zurich.

The Manor Art Prize is one of the most important prizes for the promotion of contemporary art in Switzerland. It was established in 1982 by Philippe Nordmann with the aim of providing a platform for young Swiss artists. Previous winners of the Manor Art Prize Canton of Zurich include Andro Wekua, Alexandra Navratil, Mathis Altman, Christoph Eisenring and Jan Vorisek. Lorenza Longhi is the 14th winner of the Manor Art Prize Canton of Zurich.

Curated by Konrad Bitterli