Sabine Marcelis' new 1000 Miglia trophy ‘celebrates the deep and lasting bond between pilot and co-pilot’

Since 1927, the 1000 Miglia race has seen fleets of colourful vintage cars speed across the rolling Italian countryside, spending an entire week driving to Rome and back. It traditionally starts in the beautiful city of Brescia in Lombardy, just a stone’s throw away from the 13th-century Palazzo Monti, a cultural centre which has collaborated with Dutch designer and Sabine Marcelis to produce the race’s latest trophies and medals.

Mille Miglia 2024 trophy by Sabine Marcelis

The new cups and medals for the classic Mille Miglia race were designed by Marcelis under the curation of Edoardo Monti, a collector and curator from Bergamo who launched the Palazzo Monti residency programme in 2017. Home to a series of workshops and studios, the palazzo has welcomed over 250 artists from 50 different countries since, and recently hosted a pop-up hotel by Danish brand Vipp and art installations organised by Copenhagen studio Frama.

Marcelis’ trophy and medal designs were created for the 42nd edition of the 1000 Miglia race – the original took place 24 times between 1927 to 1957, and since 1977 has been revived regularly (with only vehicles produced no later than 1957 allowed to take part). It is the third consecutive year Marcelis, Wallpaper* 2020 Designer of the Year, has collaborated with Monti and the classic race organisers.

Created in her studio in Rotterdam, the new cup is inspired by ‘the iconic shapes of the trophies of the first editions and celebrates the deep and lasting bond between pilot and co-pilot.’ It is made up of two elements, ‘each a symbol of the two protagonists: a singular object when separated, but complete only when united.’

The medals, awarded to the first 30 cars classified, feature ‘a red background layer representing the race itinerary and a transparent surface layer showing the order of arrival, the race logo and the dates’. Red is a key colour of the race – its symbol, the freccia rossa or red arrow, adorned the Venini glass trophies Marc Newson designed for the 2018-2021 races, which similarly played with transparency and light.

Light gives Marcelis’ translucent resin creations a dynamic appearance that aims to recall the speed of the cars. ‘The transparency of the materials, sometimes crystalline, other times milky, illuminates the edges of the cups and medals, culminating in a riot of changing colours that give the red of the 1000 Miglia unique nuances,’ write long-term collaborators Marcelis and Monti.

The pair met in 2018, during an artistic residency at Palazzo Monti with the Etage Projects gallery. Since then they have worked together on numerous projects, including an installation at the Hotel de la Ville in Rome. Their other 1000 Miglia creations include more cups and medals but also a 2023 large-scale installation that reinterpreted eight elements of the car, such as tyres, steering wheel and shock absorbers, on the occasion of Brescia and Bergamo Capital of Culture.

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