COMBAT AWARD 2026

Awards ceremony on Sunday, August 2nd at 7:00 PM

During the days of Venice Effect, the Museum of the City of Livorno hosts the exhibition of the 17th edition of the Combat Prize, one of the most important national competitions dedicated to contemporary art. Eighty artists, selected from over a thousand applications from Italy and abroad, present an exhibition that spans painting, photography, graphics, sculpture, installation, and video, offering a glimpse into the multiple directions of contemporary artistic research.

Organized by Blob ART ETS Cultural Association, with the support of Livorno Municipality, Tuscany Region and Livorno Foundation, the Combat Prize confirms itself as one of the longest-standing and most recognized events on the Italian scene, capable of bringing together artists of different generations, backgrounds, and languages. Over the years, the prize has built an international network of relationships, becoming a privileged observatory on the transformations of contemporary art and the new practices of visual research.

Painting, photography, graphics, sculpture, installation, and video interact in an exhibition path that relates heterogeneous research by origin, language, and approach. The works on display address themes ranging from the intimate to the social dimension, giving shape to narratives, visions, and questions capable of reflecting the multiple tensions of our time.

The Combat Prize represents an opportunity to discover some of the most interesting research in the contemporary art scene within the evocative context of the City Museum, contributing to making the Venice neighborhood a meeting place for art, culture, and creativity.

The final award ceremony of the 17th edition will take place on Sunday, August 2, 2026 at the Museum of the City of Livorno. On this occasion, the Combat Prize, the awards of the five sections, and the special prizes promoted by the project partners will be awarded, concluding an edition that confirms the role of the prize as a reference point for the enhancement of contemporary art.

The Finalists

Painting Section

Alice Moschetta, Josefina Ayllon, Alessandro Cito, Claudia Aschieri, Marco Crispano, Dario Wela, Luigi Di Fabio, Carlo Galofaro, Giulia Spugnoli, Luca Guidotti, Andrea Loi, Luca Balottin, Simona Mastropietro, Simone Miccichè, Michela Milani, Nicola Barth, Anastasia Norenko, Alessia Offidani, Diego Randazzo, Francesco Ronchi, Marco Sandreschi, Giuseppe Sciortino, Sergio Gagliardo, Lena Shaposhnikova, Signorino Pale, Sofie Tobiasova, Tonino Lacertosa, Tomás Toste, Sofia Villa, Meng Zhang

Graphic/Drawing Section

Luca Biffi, Ombretta Gamberale, Silvia Mantellini Faieta, Maria Marinelli, Mauro Valsecchi, David Michel Fayek, Pier Lorenzo Pisano, Pietro Ruisi, Aleksandra Trajkovic, Zhiyu Liu

Photography Section

Agnese Oprandi, Angelica Porrari, Nadal Antelmo, Andrea Di Lorenzo, Francesca Macis, Giacomo Mallardo, Tunahan Havrandere, Gevis Lekiqi, Francesca Maroni, Alberto Messina, Lorenzo Mini, Susanna Fiona Murray, Riccardo Pallini, Mauro Pinotti, Patrizia Posillipo, Salvatore Sparavigna, Sofia Samar, Sebastiano Branca, Luca Sereni, Sara Vighi

Sculpture/Installation Section

Alice Ahad, Serena Ciccone, Diego Azzola, Davide Fontana, Gonfio, Luca Gerry Conte, Chiara Niccoli, Marika Ricchi, Caterina Roppo, Tommaso Silvestroni

Video/Performance Section

Lorenzo Buongiovanni, Marco Calabrese, Paola Cenati, Anouk Chambaz, Rosa Lacavalla, Jiaye Liu, Rac Montoro, Mehrnoosh Roshanaei, Tommaso Buldini, Chiara Ventura

The jury of the 17th edition is composed of Andrea Bruciati (independent curator), Angel Moya Garcia (co-director of visual arts at Dello Scompiglio), Davide Ferri (director Arte Fiera Bologna), Francesca Baboni (independent curator), Ilaria Gianni (independent curator), Lorenzo Balbi (director of Civic Museums of Verona), Lorenzo Bruni (director of The Others Art Fair, Turin) and Stefano Taddei (independent curator)