If – as I believe – it is true that, as it reflects our identity, contemporary art is essential for envisioning our cultural, social and economic future, then the tenth edition of the Combat Prize – a goal that we had set four ourselves since the first edition – bears witness to a decade characterized by great social and cultural transition which have led to the changed perspectives through which art today is produced, analyzed and marketed.
To mark this tenth Combat Prize, we have decided to meet this new challenge by stanging the best possible exhibition and face the task with the seriousness and ambition that have distinguished all previous editions. Consistency, coherence and continuity in the exhibition’s format, aims and roles have succeeded in improving the visibility of our participating artists and their competitiveness on the art market. This has created mobility within the “system” making it possible to give voice to all the creative experience that compromise most of contemporary artists output and its enormous, inexhaustible wealth. It is this coherence that has gradually brought the Combat Prize into the national spotlight, to the point that it has become one of the most popular competitions in Italy and acknowledged as an important growth opportunity for artists during various phases of their careers. Many voices of the contemporary, and the works of the more than nine thousand artists who have participated in the competition’s editions, are an excellent key to reading the past decade. And, thanks to hardcopy publications and digital archiving of the works produced over the years, they will surely become a tool for analyzing a period in which the boundaries of an area inhabited by just a few have expanded making it a place open to all in an mass phenomenon representing society’s fast changes. The municipal government of Livorno has played an important role, and deserves enormous praise as do the partners who have always supported the project, along with the city’s places of culture such as the Museo Fattori, the Granai di Villa Mimbelli, the Fortezza Vecchia and the Fortezza Nuova, the Museo di Storia Naturale and the Villa del Presidente, that have hosted the competition. In turn, these places have grown and reinforced their respective missions – educations and training, planning and opening their doors to all artistic production with special attention to those that extend the process over the long - term. Heartfelt thanks to all the artists, curators and collectors who have participating in the previous editions and to the one thousand two hundred arts from fifty-two countries taking part in this year’s Combat Prize. Their careers have developed in many different ways, but they are all characterized and united by a shared desire to record our world, blazing new trails and through their explorations, find innovative answers. I hope that the Combat Prize will prove to be a marvellous voyage of the exploration that will bring you new knowledge and awareness.
- Paolo Batoni
Edited by: Paolo Batoni Edition (cm): 21x21 Year: 2018 Pages: 140 Illustrations: a colori Translation by: Julia H. Weiss Languages: italiano/inglese Texts: Paolo Batoni, Francesca Baboni, Andrea Bruciati, Stefano Taddei, Paola Tognon, Daniele De Luigi, Lorenzo Balbi, Matteo Bergamini
Prize: euro 20.00
You can order the catalogue at the Sillabe Publishing House or by sending your request to: info@premiocombat.it
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