SAN FEDELE AWARD for YOUNG artists│visual arts

Competition Announcement

 

The competition

Through the award, with the contribution of the Cariplo Foundation, the Cultural Foundation San Fedele intends to promote an artistic production of original work, developed from an elaboration and reflection on fundamental themes, as a result from a creative process involving artists, art dealers, public and critics. Addressed to artists under 35 years of age, the reward consists of a statue in fused bronze (30x12 cm) made form a mould specially created for the San Fedele competition in 1951, donated by Lucio Fontana. Furthermore, the winner will also participate in an exhibition at the San Fedele Gallery, together with the other two classified artists (on decision of the Award Director), the young artist nominated by the curators, and the winner of the Rigamonti award.

Promoting Authority

Cultural Foundation San Fedele, piazza San Fedele, 4 – 20121 Milan. The representative of the San Fedele Award young artists is the Director.

Duration and location

The competition will have an annual deadline and will be re-proposed for a period of three years. It will start in September each year and will end in December of the following year. At the end of the third year the San Fedele Young Artists Award will terminate with a final event, instead of a winners exhibition (See §: The Award Exhibition). This final event will take place at the gallery of the Cultural Foundation San Fedele.

Candidates

Invited to participate at the Young Artists Award are national and international artists who are born after January first 1975 for the year 2010/2011, after January first 1976 for the year 2011/2012 and after January first 1977 for the year 2012/2013. The competition is open to artists working in every field of the visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, video, net art). For competition reasons the artists whose activity is in the field of performance, have to present their work documented on photography or video, along with a detailed description of the project.

Registration procedure

The registration form and competition theme will be available on-line from the 30th of May 2012 www.centrosanfedele.net . Candidates must send the registration form, duly compiled and signed, to the award secretariat (Young Artist Award, film section – Piazza San Fedele 4 – 20121 Milan),  delivered by hand or by certified mail, before the 5th of September 2012. Along with the form they have to present

Portfolio printed or on digital supports CD/DVD.

Curriculum vitae

Copy of a valid ID

Short presentation of the project.

 

NB: the delivered material will not be returned. If selected, the material can be used, at discretion of the Director, for printed and/or web publications during the San Fedele Visual Art Competition. Within the 15th of September the 24 finalists will be selected and published. The selection will be managed by the Director, assisted by a selection of young curators and tutors. The selection of the candidates will be based on the received material at the registration.

Competition development and regulation, scheduled for each year

Phase 1: Selection of the 24 finalist. See § Registration modality.

Phase 2: Work presentation meetings and training. The selected candidates should, in this phase, participate in a series of public presentations of their work at the San Fedele Gallery (see paragraph § Presentation meetings) and in a series of training sessions, held by specialists of various disciplines (philosophy, history of cinema, history of art) to study the theme proposed in the course of the competition. To these sessions, a meeting between artists and curators will be added to evaluate the work in progress for the competition. To enrich the training sessions, experts in creative processes will be invited in collaboration with the Università Cattolica of Milan. The meetings will take place at the San Fedele Gallery or at the San Fedele Auditorium and are mandatory to participate at the award.

Phase 3: Completed the cycle of work presentations, training sessions and  the project verification, the artists will create an original work based on the theme chosen by the Director and participate with their work in the collective exhibition, to be held within the month of July, at the San Fedele Gallery (see § Award exhibition). The young artists can avail themselves of the collaboration of the curators/tutors, during the realization of the project for the Award. For the artists of the previous editions it will be possible to contact the Award secretariat to have a curator/tutor assigned.

Presentation of the Work

The presentations of the candidate’s work, open to the public, will be held at the San Fedele Gallery, and moderated by the Award Director and a visiting professor chosen for each occasion by the Director. During each meeting from four to six artists will be presented. The artists will be provided with a video projector, DVD player, and stereo set. Other means then the ones provided by the San Fedele Gallery will not be admitted. The presentation cycle of the works will be held from the month October until the month of December, according to the calendar previously decided by the award direction. During the presentation of the projects to the public, the participants will be asked to complete an evaluation form for each artist presented that evening. Each session will be prepared after a meeting between the curators and the Award Director, in which the artists involved that day, will participate.

NB: In case of withdrawal of a participant the Director, referenced by the curators, preserves the faculty of substitution on his judgement.

 

Award exhibition

An Award Exhibition will be held within the month of July and will last for approximately one month. This exhibition will be open to the participants of all editions according to the limit of age imposed by regulation. Every entitled artist has to present an unpublished work according to the theme of the correspondent year, within the terms decided by the award direction. The dimensions or length of the works (in case of video or performance) will be communicated to the artists. The number of projects shown at the award exhibition will include the winners of each year (first, second and third classified and the young artists selected by the curators) as well as a selection – at the discretion of the Award Director, on proposal of the curators/tutors – of the best projects presented. Also exhibited will be the winner of the Paolo Rigamonti Award. The San Fedele Gallery will publish a catalogue of the award exhibition containing images of the shown work, a short CV of the artist, texts by the Director and a choice of curators.

 

Jury Panel

The jury will be composed of twelve members, one of which will be the Award Director, as well as the curators/tutors nominated by the Director, each with a single vote. The other members will be chosen amongst critics, collectors, artists, and journalists, nominated by the Director. Each member of the jury will dispose of three votes, respectively worth 3, 2 and 1 point, to be assigned to three different projects. The voting will be secret. The twelfth member of the jury will be the public who, based on the forms compiled during the day, will assign three votes of respectively 3, 2 and 1 point. The score decided by the public will be held valid also for the successive editions in which the candidate is entitled to participate. In order to assign the Award, the winning project has to have collected at least 12 points. In the event of a tie, a new ballot will be held by the Director and the curators/tutors, disposing of one vote each. The members of the jury express individually the proper preference for a single project. In order to assign the Award, the winning projects must have collected at least four preferences. In the event of a tie, the Director and curators/tutors will vote again. The curators will then express a special nomination for a project, disposing each of one vote.

The Cultural Foundation San Fedele can use the images of the projects presented during the Award for promotion of the initiative and the promotion the various collateral activities of the Cultural Foundation. The winners who have presented video projects (first classified, artist chosen by the curators/ tutors and the Rigamonti Award winner) will be admitted by right to the art film festival of Asolo, according to the regulation imposed by the festival, visible at www.asolofilmfestival.it

Phase 4: During the first two years, the winner of the Award will exhibit together with the winner of the Rigamonti Award. The other two classified can also participate at the discretion of the Award Director.

Third year: The final event.

Phase 5:

The third year, instead of just an exhibition of the winners, a final episode will be organized in autumn 2013, consisting in an event, open to the city of Milan, in which, besides the exhibition all sectors of the Award will be involved.

Shipments and insurance

Shipment of the material and works will be at participants’ expense. The San Fedele Gallery will take extreme care in handling the works, but won’t hold any responsibility for damage, loss or theft. In case an artist wants to insure the work, this will be charged to the latter. The works not exposed at the Award exhibition have to be withdrawn within one month from the closing date of the exhibition. In case of failed withdrawal within the established date the San Fedele Gallery declines all responsibility.

NB: subscribing the participation documents for the competition implies the full acceptance of the award regulation. The award direction will maintain the right to decide on all non specified issues concerning the regulation. In case of dispute the Italian version is authoritative. For any dispute the law court of Milan has jurisdiction.