COMBAT PRIZE 2024

The Combat Prize returns, the international contemporary art competition, now in its fifteenth edition, from September 21st to October 5th.
Opening on Saturday, September 21st at 5 pm, Granai Villa Mimbelli, via Sant’Jacopo in Acquaviva, 65.
The event is organized by the cultural association Blob Art ETS, in collaboration with the Municipality of Livorno and the Tuscany Region, with the support of the Livorno Foundation, the Sillabe Publishing House, together with the Opera Laboratori partner and Poliart, a leading company in the production of expanded polystyrene.
The Giovanni Fattori Civic Museum – Granai di Villa Mimbelli in Livorno will host the 80 finalist artworks, welcoming in its rooms the sections of Painting, Graphics, Photography, Sculpture and Installation, Video, and Performance.
The Prize has gathered, also for this edition, a significant number of submissions: there are indeed 1094 artworks sent by artists who responded to the call, with participants from 36 different countries.
With a free theme and no age restrictions, the Combat Prize, since its inception, gives voice to emerging talents and the most innovative artistic experiments, placing itself at the forefront in documenting the various paths taken by contemporary artists and their responses to the political, social, and human contradictions of our contemporaneity. A method that investigates the current visual production, with an international scope, detached from purely commercial discourses and logics. The Combat Prize 2024 confirms itself as a privileged place of convergence and reflection on the themes of Italian and international contemporary art.
The jury of the Combat Prize 2024 is composed of prominent figures in the artistic panorama: Francesca Baboni (independent curator), Lorenzo Balbi (director MAMbo Bologna), Andrea Bruciati (director of Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este in Tivoli), Davide Ferri (independent curator), Angel Moya Garcia (co-director of visual arts at Tenuta dello Scompiglio), and Stefano Taddei (independent curator).
Among the novelties of this fifteenth edition of the Combat Prize stands out the participation of the Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr, represented by the Galleria Continua in San Gimignano, who will be this year’s guest artist. Nasr will present, out of competition, his work Arabesque, made with matchsticks with colored heads forming intricate decorative motifs. The work recalls the classic ornaments of Islamic architecture, used in mosques and palaces, but also introduces a sense of precariousness: each match, while contributing to the overall harmony, represents a potential danger, suggesting the possibility of a sudden explosion that can erase the aesthetic order.
The exhibition will conclude on October 5th with the award ceremony for the winners at the Fattori Museum, where the Combat Prize, worth ten thousand euros, will be awarded by the jury to one of the 80 finalists. In addition to this, there will be cash prizes for the winners of the five sections, and the Special Galleries Prize: six top galleries in the contemporary panorama and an independent space (SAC, Livorno) will each select an artist among the finalists to start a new collaboration that will materialize in a personal or collective exhibition in their spaces in the 2024/25 season, continuing the dialogue started during the Prize.
Furthermore, the Poliart Prize is also consolidated, with the company, a leader in expanded polystyrene processing, supporting the production of a work by an artist selected among the finalists, strengthening the dialogue between art, business, and territory, essential for the development and knowledge of contemporary artists.
Also returning in this fifteenth edition is the Popular Jury Prize, which will allow the public to express their preferences on the works in competition.
Combat Prize XV edition
dates: September 21 – October 5, 2024
Venue
Giovanni Fattori Civic Museum – Granai di Villa Mimbelli
Painting – Graphics – Photography – Sculpture/Installation – Video Sections
via San Jacopo in Acquaviva 65/71 – Livorno
+39 0586 – 808001 / 824607
Opening hours
Tuesday to Friday 4.00 pm – 7.00 pm
Saturday and Sunday 10.00 am – 1.00 pm / 4.00 pm – 7.00 pm
Opening: Saturday, September 21 at 5.00 pm
Awards ceremony: Saturday, October 5 at 5.00 pm https://www.premiocombat.it/
Jury
Francesca Baboni (independent curator), Lorenzo Balbi (director MAMbo Bologna), Andrea Bruciati (director of Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este in Tivoli), Davide Ferri (independent curator) Ilaria Gianni (independent curator), Angel Moya Garcia (co-director of visual arts at Tenuta dello Scompiglio), and Stefano Taddei (independent curator).

The Finalists
Painting Section
Amara, Daniele Antoniazzi, Federico Aprile, Andrea Astolfi, Asya Dell’omodarme, Lorenzo Dominici, Elisa Filomena, Gloria Franzin, Gabriela Azar Rubagotti, Andrea Lucchesi, Rovers Malaj, Francesca Mazzagatti, Carlotta Mazzariol, Gemma Mazzotti, Lorenzo Modica, Yasmin Noorbakhsh, Federica Poletti, Julie Polidoro, Diego Randazzo, Michele Savino, Giorgia Severi, Deborah Sica, Luciano Sozio, Thomas Antonelli, Sabrina Versavia, Riccardo Vicentini, Sofia Villa, Jilan Wu, Jacopo Zambello, Qi Zhang
Graphics Section
Thomas Amerlynck, Anna Berrino, Valeria Carrieri, Guido Corbisiero, Flavia Carolina D’alessandro, Rossi Marco, Barbara Rosita Raimondo, Cristina Sammarco, Ruslan Shegai, Anna Trojanowska
Photography Section
Melissa Arena, Tom Atwood, Luca Campestri, Guglielmo Cherchi, Cesare Di Liborio, Flavio Di Renzo, Jona Fierro, Francesca Loprieno, Mattia Ciaf, Luca Misuri, Simone Panzeri, Gabriella Pezzuto, Camilla Postiglione, Carolina Rapezzi, Matteo Savani, Giulia Sofi, Niamh Swanton, Marco Tagliafico, Jacopo Valentini, Giulia Vanelli