ART AWARD EVENT In autumn, the double exhibition of the Arte Laguna Prize at the Arsenale of Venice

The collective exhibition of the Arte Laguna Prize returns to the iconic spaces of the Arsenale Nordin Venice from October 3 to November 21 2021, joining the rich program of events that have seen the city of Venice flourish again in recent months thanks to art and culture. Due to the well-known circumstances related to the health emergency, the exhibition becomes biennia, presenting the finalists of the 14th and 15th editions of the competition. A major event where 240 works from all over the world will be exhibited in 4,000 square meters of exhibition space to celebrate 15 years of the Arte Laguna Prize, founded in 2006 by the Cultural Association MoCA of Venice.

The exhibition will combine two editions of the historic art competition. Curator Igor Zanti, director of IED Firenze and Matteo Galbiati will create a touching dialogue among the works selected from over 22,000 by the jury of curators, museum directors, and art experts.

"This exhibition will inevitably be, for the works conceived and imagined in years so close, but extraordinarily distant for everything that has happened in the meantime, an ideal bridge between two eras. It will mark the boundary between two worlds, between two ways of thinking and seeing reality." States Igor Zanti. "A double edition", continues Matteo Galbiati, "that highlights very well the difference in perspectives and reflections that were observed by the artists before and after the pandemic."

Arte Laguna Prize / Photo by Giacomo Di Lillo / Courtesy of Arte Laguna Prize

The 240 artists selected by the international jury will exhibit works of painting, photographic art, sculpture and installation, video art and short films, performance, virtual art, digital graphics, land art, urban art and design. A 360° overview of international contemporary art that will enliven the Venetian autumn thanks to an exciting program of guided tours and talks on art and sustainability, the relationship between creativity and business, heritage marketing and 3D galleries, the history of Venice and the Arsenale, the art market and much more. Among the guests: representatives of the Veneto Region, of the world of Design, of Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and so on. A series of unmissable events in one of the most prominent locations of the art world.

The opening and the awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, October 2, from 5 pm. The seven absolute winners of both editions will be awarded during the evening, receiving a cash prize of 10,000 euros each. Also, the 42 artists chosen by the international partners of the Arte Laguna Prize will be awarded for their participation in art residencies, gallery exhibitions, festivals, collaborations with companies and awards for artistic reuse of recycled materials. The live stream of the event will be available on the Arte Laguna Prize Facebook page.

At the Arte Laguna Prize exhibition discover the works of Henry Le, the Vietnamese artist that the Cultural Association MoCA brings to Venice for the first time. The solo exhibition Soul Energy curated by Chiara Canali from 3 to October 12 at Tesa 99 of the Arsenale Nord will be a retrospective. The artist presents a series of large-scale paintings and majestic sculptures that evoke his homeland and reflect his artistic research.

Arte Laguna Prize / Photo by Nicola D'Orta / Courtesy of Arte Laguna Prize

The President of the Italian Republic has awarded Arte Laguna Prize a medal, and it also has the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of the Environment and Protection of the Territory and the Sea, the Veneto Region, the Municipality of Venice, the Ca'Foscari University of Venice and the European Institute of Design.

THE EXHIBITION DATES

• Press Preview | October 2 2021, 12 pm

• Exhibition | October 3 - November 21 2021, 10 am – 6 pm (Open daily with reservation required)

THE JURY

For the 14th edition:

• Iwona Blazwick – Director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London;

• Karel Boonzaaijer – Designer, Architect and Professor at the University of Applied Science in Aachen;

• Valentino Catricalà – Contemporary art Curator and art section Director of the Maker Faire – The European Edition;

• Aldo Cibic – the fundamental name of made in Italy design in the world;

• Erin Dziedzic – Chief Curator at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Artin Kansas City, Missouri;

• Zhao Li – Professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and curator of the Chinese Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale;

• Riccardo Passoni – Director of GAM - the Modern Art Gallery in Turin;

• Vasili Tsereteli – Director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

For the 15th edition:

• Bénédicte Alliot – General Director of the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris;

• Nathalie Angles – Founder and Executive Director of Residency Unlimited in the United States;

• Lorenzo Balbi – Artistic Director at MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna;

• Marcus Fairs – Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Dezeen in the United Kingdom;

• Sophie Goltz – Curator, Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Director of the International Summer Academy in Salzburg;

• Toshiyuki Kita – a Japanese Designer, honoured with the ADI Lifetime Achievement Award "Compasso d'Oro alla carriera internazionale";

• Beate Reifenscheid – Director of Ludwig Museum Koblenz and President of ICOM Germany.