The FURLA Art Award was created by Fondazione Querini Stampalia in 2000 in order to inform, support and give visibility to emerging Italian artists, with the aim to provide an exhaustive overview of the Country's contemporary creativity.

Planned and curated by Chiara Bertola, the Award is organized by Fondazione Querini Stampalia and FURLA. As of the Fifth Edition (2005), it has been supported by the following Institutional partners: The Modern Art Gallery in Bologna from 2005 to 2011, Unicredit from 2007 to 2009 and also CARISBO in 2005 and 2011.

All forms of contemporary art are accepted: videos, pictures, paintings, installations, performances, sculptures.

Artists may participate in the Award only upon invitation, so that the competing contestants may be the result of a wide but first-rate selection carried out by curators who have a deep knowledge of young Italian artists' panorama. Since 2005, the Award has become biennal to enable more accurate judgements and choices.

Each edition is characterized by a different graphic design, entrusted each time to an International artist who is the special guest of the Award. During the years, this role has been assigned to Joseph Kosuth, Ilya Kabakov, Lothar Baumgarten, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Kiki Smith , Mona Hatoum and Marina Abramovic.

Each edition is enriched by a bilingual catalogue describing all the phases of the Awards: the discussions leading to the various selections, the proclamation of the winner, the works of art being exhibited, the interviews to the five finalists, as well as the sign-up forms, photos and curriculum vitae of all the artists taking part in the competition.

All the material sent for the artists' selection is kept in the Viafarini's Young Artists Archive, working for years to give visibility to emerging artists in Italy.