Seven galleries, an independent space, and Poliart join the Special Prizes of Combat Prize 2023. Each gallery/space, autonomously from the judging panel of the Prize, will select an artist among the eighty finalists in order to realise a new collaboration (solo or collective show or site-specific project). All the exhibitions and events will take place in the exhibition season 2023-2023. The project is designed to continue the artistic research and give continuity to the comparison opened during the participation in the Prize.
A+B gallery was founded in September 2011 from a project by Dario Bonetta. From 2011 the gallery has been working on a discovery action of emergent artists in Italian and international context. In May 2020 the gallery moved in a new gallery space in the city center of Brescia. The focus of the program is on artists born in the 1980s, which represents a new generation able to express conceptual reflections and aesthetics about models of the new millennium. Most of the represented artists had their first solo show at A+B gallery and the program define new aesthetics and trends in Contemporary Art through different kind of medium. The main objective is to create a launchpad to enforce cultural networks on international level that involves not only institutional spaces, as museums, galleries and fairs, but also unusual sites for innovative curatorial projects.
IAGA Contemporary Art is a gallery founded in 2014 in Cluj-Napoca, Rumania, in the region of Transylvania. The gallery, born from the entrepreneurial desire of the collector Alberto Pierobelli and specialised in contemporary art, includes an accurate selection of modern artworks, to be understood as moments of reflection on the evolution of contemporary languages and as places of comparison between the various artistic researches. IAGA’s mission is to create connections within artists from all over Europe, as well as a network of artists, collectors, and art experts. The gallery promotes artists from Rumania, Italy, Poland, Moldova, and other countries, with particular attention to young artists, who are given the opportunity of growth in this sector. Despite being a young gallery, IAGA is extremely active in Rumania, as the fervent gallery activity demonstrates – coordinated by Rosalba Di Pietro, gallery manager – with about six exhibitions per year, several collaborations with artistic institutions and galleries from all over the world, and a consistent participation in fairs and international events in Europe.
From the very beginning of its activity, Studio G7, founded in 1973 by Ginevra Grigolo, has paid special attention to sculptural practice, recognising it a central role in the contemporary art scene. Exhibitions by Penone, Uncini, Bernardoni, Nagasawa, Coletta, Habicher, Spagnulo, Icaro, Nunzio, Corneli, and Carroli have followed. In the new millennium, the activity continues with a focus on the latest trends, consolidating the collaborations with the artists encountered in previous years and proposing new research, such as the work of Marco Bertozzi, Daniela Comani, Flavio de Marco, Gregorio Botta, and Francesco Candeloro, among others. In April 2017, Studio G7 celebrated 44 years of activity by holding a retrospective exhibition in the spaces of MAMbo, the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna, retracing its history and emphasising how each artist has been fundamental in the path and definition of what is the Gallery's and its founder Ginevra Grigolo's way of making contemporary art. From August 2019, the activity continues under the direction of Giulia Biafore.
Lunetta11 is located in an ancient village of the seventeenth century, in the Alta Langa area in the region of Piedmont. A place in constant dialogue with the surrounding territory and contemporary art, with particular attention to artistic expressions of the new generations. A gallery founded in 2019, directed by Claudia Zunino and Francesco Pistoi.
MAG | Magazzeno Art Gallery is a gallery engaged in exhibiting and promoting contemporary art in all its declinations. Founded by Alessandra Carini in Ravenna in 2016, in a former sulphur warehouse (from which it takes its name), it has focused ever since on the promotion and the exhibition of fine art works influenced by the urban culture. In January 2020, MAG moved to the first floor of a palace dating from 1836, in the historical centre of Ravenna: a more intimate space to welcome collectors and visitors that best represents the concept of an inclusive gallery, open and hospitable. In the meanwhile, a small space in Bologna city centre gets open. MAG reconsiders the gallery space and adapts it to the needs of nowadays, by directing more attention on fairs, on-line sale, and temporary exhibitions in pop-up spaces, increasing thus the visibility of its artists in different spaces respects the merely gallery or museum spaces and also increasing a diversified public for provenience, age, and interests. Since March 2020 MAG becomes part of ANGAMC, Associazione Nazionale Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. It collaborates with Bonobolabo since 2017.
Marina Bastianello Gallery was inaugurated in October 2012 in the heart of Mestre. The gallery changed location in 2018, moving to the urban district of M9 Museum. The characteristic of the Marina Bastianello Gallery is to show almost exclusively artists born (anagraphically) in the 80s, following them step by step and building this way a cultural fulcrum for emerging talents. In these years, the gallery has worked with institutions and national museums. In addition, the gallery participates in national and international contemporary art fairs.
Since 2019, the SAC – Spazio Arte Contemporanea is the new exhibition venue of the Cultural Association Blob ART. The Cultural Association Blob ART is a non-profit organisation for the promotion of contemporary artistic research, which has been passionately encouraging cultural experimentation in all its forms, in Italy, since 2009.
The company, leader in the processing of expanded polystyrene, will award an artist selected among the finalists, supporting the production of a work. The maximum format can be 200 x 60 x 80 cm. Technical specifications:
