The Arturo Carmassi Prize has been established to promote contemporary Italian painting and its role in interpreting changes in society through images. Its first edition is dedicated to “New Magic Realism in Contemporary Italian Painting,” revisiting the relationship between reality and imagination, the visible and invisible, and the everyday and the unsettling.
The prize is inspired by Arturo Carmassi, a painter who died in 2015 and whose career spanned several major artistic periods of the 20th century. The initiative aims to support painting as a space for research and experimentation, while engaging with its history and developing new ways of seeing.
The competition has two sections. In the invitation-only category, curator Gianluca Marziani selected Danilo Bucchi, Alberto Di Fabio, Francesca Duscià, Daniele Galliano, Caterina Giglio and Nicola Pucci. Each artist presents five works in the prize’s Digital Museum, and the public will vote to choose the winner.
The winner of the invited section will receive a solo exhibition at an institutional venue, a cover feature in Scuola Italiana Magazine, the production of a graphic artwork with publisher Scrinium, and a monographic catalogue.
The online section is open, regardless of age, to Italian artists and to artists with documented professional activity in Italy. Public votes will select ten finalists, from whom a committee will choose the winner. The winning work will be shown at an institutional venue and featured in an article in Scuola Italiana Magazine.
Artistic direction is shared by Anna Paola Lo Presti and Gianluca Marziani.
Sources: ANSA Cultura.