Sillabe has published the catalog for PREMIO COMBAT PRIZE's eleventh edition

As we planned the eleventh edition of the Combat Prize we certainly had not foreseen that an event as shocking, out of place and sudden as a pandemic could interrupt the usual flow of things.

Premio Combat Prize's catalog - Sillabe Edition

Beyond the countless human tragedies, this powerful eruption of “true reality” into our daily lives showed the fragility of an art world made up of cultural workers, curators, and artists, levelled by financial insecurity, poorly supported by national institutions. They are risking irreversible disappearance and being relegated to the roles of characters in a uchronic novel.

All this should lead to important considerations on our ability to resist in the face of an imminent catastrophe. Do we turn our backs or start doing our part, believing in culture and art as tools for improving ourselves and society, giving them priority in the plan for restarting?

We know where we have to be and the Combat Prize’s 1402 registered entries by artists from forty-six countries are the best results since its inception; it is a recognition of the Combat Prize’s constant and authoritative cultural identity. Over the years, the possibility of accessing a network and achieving considerable visibility for the artists has created valid mobility within the system. It has made it possible to give voice to all those creative experiences that are not always represented by galleries and institutions and yet comprise the greater part of contemporary artistic output.

Paolo Batoni, President Associazione Culturale Blob ART

Edited by: Paolo Batoni

Edition (cm): 21x21

Year: 2020

Pages: 144

Illustrations: a colori

Translation by: Julia H. Weiss

Languages: italiano/inglese

Texts: Simone Lenzi, Paolo Batoni, Francesca Baboni, Andrea Bruciati, Stefano Taddei, Lorenzo Balbi, CAMPOBASE, Kiki Mazzucchelli

Prize: euro 20.00

You can order the catalog at the Sillabe Publishing House or by sending your request to: info@premiocombat.it

Combat Prize eleventh edition kicks off

COMBAT PRIZE is back! The international contest for contemporary art, organised by the cultural Association Blob Art, will inaugurate its eleventh edition on 10th October 2020.

In partnership with the Municipality of Livorno, and with the support of the Foundation Livorno and of the publishing house Sillabe, the exhibition of the 80 finalist works will unfold across three exceptional locations. The Painting section will be hosted at the Granai of Villa Mimbelli; the Sculpture, Installation and Video sections will instead be exhibited at SAC – Spazio Arte Contemporanea; the Museum Giovanni Fattori of Livorno will host the Photography, together with the brand-new section entirely dedicated to Drawing. In the latter venue will also take place the award ceremony on 31st October.

Granai di Villa Mimbelli

The boom in registrations [1.402] and participations from abroad – 46 countries – confirm 2020 as a record edition. In fact, to the usual cash prizes for each of the five sections of the competition, a new award is added, sponsored by Blob Art Association, which will allow the winner to exhibit his artworks in 2021 for a solo exhibition at SAC, Spazio Arte Contemporanea di Livorno, together with a dedicated editorial publication. Moreover, two more projects consolidate this year: ART TRACKER, a project which will include three finalists under 35 in the programme of Lucca Art Fair 2021, with an original curatorial project, and the prize POLIART, sponsored by the homonymous company, leader in the processing of expanded polystyrene, which will support the winner in producing his/her sculpture or installation.

SAC spazio arte contemporanea

No age limits are set nor any thematic restriction to the much-awaited Livornese contest which gives voice to the emerging talents and to the most innovative artistic experiments. Despite the postponement due to the world health emergency, Combat Prize comes back on the front line, documenting the debate among new expressive trends and provocations that since 2009 bring together, in this event, the artists answers to the political, social and human contradictions of our contemporaneity.

The project Combat 2020 is also the privileged space of internationally renowned artists who decided to support it through the desecrating drive of their research: this is the case of Regina José Galindo, the Guatemalan performer, exhibiting El Gran Rétorno as out-of-competition artist for the Video section. Her backwards military march, through the streets of Guatemala City - that ideally become the streets of the world - is a black parade having little triumphal, and being much closer to the funeral of society silenced with strength than to the celebration of its freedom.

El Gran Rétorno - courtesy Regina José Galindo

Combat Prize 2020 confirms its unmissable appointment in the panorama of contemporary art events at world level, croassroads between people, discussions and reflections on possible and tangible streets, that art will take up in the future.

- Serena Tacchini

THE JURY

Kiki Mazzucchelli IndEpendent curator, London - Sao Paulo; Lorenzo Balbi Director of MAMbo, Bologna; Francesca Baboni Independent curator; Andrea Bruciati Director of Villa Adriana & Villa d’Este, Tivoli; CampoBase Curatorial collective composed by Irene Angenica, Bianca Buccioli, Emanuele Carlenzi, Gabriella Dal Lago, Ginevra Ludovici, Federica Torgano, Stefano Volpato; Stefano Taddei Independent curator.

THE FINALISTS

Painting Section

Afra17, Nicolò Bruno, Gian Marco Capraro, Francesco Casati, Giulia Coda, Oscar Isaias Contreras Rojas, Leonardo Dalla Torre, Jingge Dong, Noemi Durighello, Greta Maria Gerosa, Cesare Giuffredi, Tommaso Giusti, Arvin Golrokh, Heikedine Günter, Mirjam Hinn, Ashleigh Holmes, Kazuhiro Kita, Luca Migliorino, Luisa Me, Marco Mastropieri, Elena Monzo, Francis Offman, Silvia Paci, Laura Pedizzi, Nazzarena Poli Maramotti, Eleonora Rinaldi, Gregorio Samsa, Ersilia Sarrecchia, Davide Serpetti, Alina Vergnano

Drawing Section

Matthew Attard, Veronica Azzinari, Giulia Dall’olio, Elena Latini, Stefano Lepori, Pierpaolo Miccolis, Stefan Milosavljevic, Giuliana Tommasin, Angela Viola, David Von Bassewitz

Photography Section

Pauline Batista, Petros Chrisostomou, Alessandro Costanzo, Giulia Dari, Cesare Di Liborio, Greta di Lorenzo, Federica Coseschi, Brigitte Gaggl, Brendon Kahn, Pia Kintrup, Pietro Mancini, Gabriele Milani, Rachele Montoro, Jacopo Noera, Alicia Paz, Lia Ronchi, Roberta Segata, Thilo Seidel, Ivan Terranova, Cristiano Volk

Sculpture/Installation Section

Riccardo Bellelli, Erika Giacalone, Giulio Locatelli, Giulia Maiorano, Lucas Memmola, Paolo Bufalini, Paolo Peroni, Andreas Senoner, Agnese Spolverini, Ricardo Aleodor Venturi

Video Section

Elena Arzuffi, Giovanni Chiamenti, Margherita Citi, Iocose, Mahnaz Khanpour Motazedi, Leoni Mastrangelo, Christina Maj Lundqvist, Aronne Pleuteri, Valentino Russo, [Guest artist] Regina José Galindo

THE LOCATIONS

Museo civico Giovanni Fattori - Photography - Drawing Section

Via S. Jacopo In Acquaviva, 65, Livorno

+39 0586 – 808001/ 824607

From tuesday to sunday: 10.00 – 13.00; 16.00 – 19.00

Granai di Villa Mimbelli - Painting Section

Via S. Jacopo In Acquaviva 65, Livorno

+39 0586 – 808001/ 824607

From tuesday to friday: 16.00 - 19.00;

Saturday and Sunday: 10.00 - 13.00 / 16.00 – 19.00

SAC - Spazio Arte Contemporanea - Sculpture/Installation - Video Section

Via Luigi Boccherini 22, Livorno

+39 0586 – 8881165

From tuesday to sunday: 10.00 – 13.00; 16.00 – 19.00

https://www.premiocombat.it/en

Pinakothek der Modern presents FEELINGS. ART AND EMOTION

100 paintings, objects, and films from around 40 international contemporary artists invite us to intuitively approach art from an emotional perspective.

What does art provoke in us? To what extent does our view of art depend on our personal experiences and memories? Which feelings emerge as we contemplate works of art, if our gaze is led by intuition alone? The exhibition FEELINGS seeks to encourage this direct dialogue between artwork and viewer in order to stimulate an intense emotional engagement. The works exhibited are characterized by enigmatic motifs and atmospheric visual spaces. Joy, excitement, anger, revulsion, sadness, and numerous other emotional reactions may ensue upon viewing the works. The choice of exhibits is subjective; the art historical context and explanatory wall texts have been deliberately omitted.

Tadeusz Kantor Die tote Klasse, 1975 installation, wooden floor, -bench, -tables, puppets, clothes, 150 x 150 x 300cm 2007 acquired by PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e.V. Photo: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sibylle Forster © Tadeusz Kantor

When does a picture attract us, when does it repel us? The study of emotions is still a young branch of psychology, sociology, history, and neuroscience. Ever since the Enlightenment, the focus has been on humankind as primarily rational beings; their view of the world and images was dominated by intellect above all else. Today, however, it can be proven that emotions have much more influence over us than we have previously wanted to admit. It is no coincidence that politics and advertising have long—and thoroughly manipulatively—relied on using images to evoke feelings and then utilized these for their own ends.

Vlassis Caniaris Chicken Coop, 1974 mixed media, various dimensions 2018 acquired by PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e.V. © Vlassis Caniaris

Art, on the other hand, is formed in free contexts, creates a purely personal relationship with the audience, and exists without a discernible purpose. The contemplation of works of art offers the opportunity to become more familiar with one’s own emotional world, for it is not uncommon for images to trigger associations with experiences that literally “get under your skin” and are sometimes stored for a long time. Art touches upon our personal emotional archive. Whether works are perceived as pleasant or unpleasant, whether they confuse or delight, all essentially depends on the stored experience. More importance is usually ascribed to reasoning than to feelings when viewing art, for it seems to contradict its complexity and intellectual depth. This dominance of the rational discourages many people from engaging with contemporary art in particular. FEELINGS wishes to subvert these threshold fears, for intuition represents an essential approach to art. After all, the creation of a work is also based on personal experience.

Sam Taylor Johnson Soliloqui I, 1998 colour printing, C-print, 211 x 257 cm (Blattmaß) 1999 acquired by PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e.V. Photo: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen © Sam Taylor Johnson

FEELINGS seeks to highlight this perspective on art. The exhibition features contributions from the following artists: Hans Aichinger, Monika Baer, Heike Kathi Barath, Vlassis Caniaris, Gregory Crewdson, Alex Da Corte, Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Drei Hamburger Frauen, Marlene Dumas, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tracey Emin, Gotthard Graubner, Jenny Holzer, Thilo Jenssen, Tadeusz Kantor, Ruprecht von Kaufmann, Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy, Jochen Klein, Rosa Loy, Rosilene Luduvico, Stephan Melzl, Olaf Metzel, Miwa Ogasawara, Catherine Opie, Laura Owens, Richard Prince, Bernhard Prinz, Alexandra Ranner, Wilhelm Sasnal, Markus Schinwald , Norbert Schwontkowski, Cindy Sherman, Sam Taylor Johnson, Jessica Vaughn, Gillian Wearing, Amelie von Wulffen, and Artur Zmijewski.

The exhibited works are from the holdings of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, the Goetz Collection, and other private collections.

The exhibition is supported by

PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e. V.

Curators: Bernhart Schwenk and Nicola Graef.

- Redazione

PINAKOTHEK DER MODERNE

FEELINGS

OPENING | 07 NOVEMBER 2019, 7.00 P.M.

EXHIBITION DURATION | 08 NOVEMBER 2019 – 04 OCTOBER 2020

Sammlung Moderne Kunst und Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München Barer Str. 29  D-80799 München  T +49 (0)89 23805-122/ -253 / -286  F +49 (0)89 23805-125 

www.pinakothek.de

Marlene Dumas Cupid, 1994 oil on canvas, 180 x 140 cm 2008 acquired as loan of the Michael and Eleonore Stoffel Foundation, Cologne Photo: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Haydar Koyupinar © Marlene Dumas