Exhibition of the finalists of the Arte Laguna Prize at the Arsenale Nord in Venice

From March 21st to April 13th 2020, in the breathtaking location of the Arsenale Nord in Venice, you can visit for free the exhibition of the 120 finalist works of the 14th Arte Laguna Prize.
The Prize stands out for its international dimension: as every year, artists and designers from all over the world applied to the competition, with a prevalence of entries from Italy, Russia, France, United States and China.
The international jury evaluated the over 10,000 works submitted from September to December 2019, proposing a selection that is as representative as possible of international contemporary art: 30 paintings, 25 sculptures and installations, 25 works of photographic art, 10 videos, 5 land art projects, 5 urban art projects, 5 virtual art projects, 5 digital graphics, 5 design projects and 5 performances that will be staged live during the opening night.
Among the works on display, the jury will identify four absolute winners who will win the cash prizes of 10,000 euros each, for a total amount of 40,000 euros. An important recognition that aims to promote new talents and to allow artists to invest in their careers.
In addition, the absolute winners, together with the winners of the previous editions, will fly to Moscow in 2021 to participate in the collective exhibition at MMOMA - Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

The opening event and the awards ceremony of the winning artists will take place on Saturday March 21st, from 5pm.


The exhibition is curated by Igor Zanti, curator of the Prize since its first edition and director of IED Florence, with the collaboration of the eight international jurors: 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 - fundamental name of made in Italy design in the world; Erin Dziedzic - Chief Curator at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in 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.


During the opening night, the winners of the special prizes will also be announced. They will have the opportunity to exhibit in important international galleries, to collaborate with companies or to experience an art residency in Italy and abroad:

- Artist in Residence: A program of art residences in Italy and abroad to allow an artistic experience of growth in contact with a new environment or a new culture, to create new works and to participate in new activities in a multicultural environment. The residencies are assigned to six artists and are: Fabrica in Treviso, Gridchinhall in Moscow, Espronceda in Barcellona, Basu Foundation for the Arts in Kolkata, Farm Cultural Park in Favara (Sicily), Maradiva Cultural Residency in Mauritius.

- Business for Art: Collaborations with companies in order to connect artists with entrepreneurs who see creativity as a form of communication and productive momentum. This year an artist Under25 from the painting section will win a € 2,500 prize and a collaboration with the Venetian company Majer; three artists will win a € 1000 prize each and spend a month at the Outofblue tourist facility in La Palma - Canary Islands, where they will have the task of enhancing the spaces with site-specific interventions.

- Artist in Gallery: Organization of 2 exhibitions in international Art Galleries, including setting up, vernissage and catalogue. The venues are: Galerie Isabelle Lesmeister in Regensburg, Germany and Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, United States.

- Festivals and Group exhibitions: Selection of eleven artists for participation in collective events in Slovenia at Art Stays Festival and in Beijing with the events organized by Art Nova 100.

- Sustainability and Art: The special prize with the CIAL consortium and Ca' Foscari that rewards with 3,000 euros the best Reuse, Reduce, Recycle proposal for aluminum packaging recycling.


In conjunction with the 14th Arte Laguna Prize Exhibition, the Cultural Association MoCA brings to Venice for the first time the Vietnamese artist Henry Le, who will exhibit at Tesa 99 of the Arsenale Nord from March 21st to April 1st. A retrospective in which the artist takes to stage his artworks, the result of his activity of the past ten years. A series of large-scale paintings and majestic sculptures that evoke his homeland and reflect his personal artistic research.

The Prize has been awarded with a medal by the President of the Italian Republic and 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.