Italiano
TERRITORIO ABRUZZO AWARD
Indice
The “Territorio Abruzzo” Award pursues numerous cultural and social goals and brings various benefits awaited by all the spheres involved, such as industry, society and the art world. It implies an ethical commitment by the promoters and the authorities involved, which becomes crucial at this moment in history characterized by a profound questioning of society’s entire system of values.
The increasingly widespread presence of means of information, globally connected multidisciplinary networks, advanced technologies and ceaseless innovation is accompanied by citizens’ growing awareness of many social and environmental issues. This makes them more demanding in terms of consumer choice, which is ever more frequently oriented at culture: the immense and underused heritage of all of Italy.
Industry studies and international experiments show how increased cultural production and consumption ensure the growth and consolidation of public and private enterprises capable of enhancing intellectual capital, promoting knowledge, innovation culture and the rediscovery of traditions. We mean those enterprises with the ability to promote the “improvement of quality of life” in the long term, triggering “culture-driven”–type economic mechanisms and activating virtuous processes of economic competitiveness, making the regions more attractive and innovating the entire production system, creating new jobs with high intensity of human capital.
The “Territorio Abruzzo” Award, with the artistic supervision of Achille Bonito Oliva, was born out of the conviction that a higher level of culture in society, schools and economic production processes is useful for social progress by establishing a greater sense of public spirit in individuals. Indeed, universal values of social commitment and intellectual honesty are implicit in the art project. Similarly, the dissemination of the results of artistic research generates mental flexibility, demolishes cultural stereotypes and preconceptions, and paves the way for everything new or just different, creating a fertile environment for change.
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ART 2. OBJECTIVES
1) To involve all Abruzzo students in an active manner.
2) To extend and diversify the audience for art and encourage participation.
3) To promote and boost production, consumption and artistic debate in the region.
4) To create greater social cohesion via culture, triggering effective strategic mechanisms capable of involving many social players through the construction of places and processes by which they can achieve deeper knowledge.
5) To raise the quality of local artistic production/debate, attracting the contemporary international art system to Abruzzo and actively involving international opinion leaders and curators in the quality of the projects created.
6) To promote the region of Abruzzo in the most important international art and cultural venues.
7) To raise the awareness of partners and entrepreneurs regarding the social and economic productivity of professional art, etc.
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ART 3. TARGET
All fourth- and fifth-year students of secondary schools in the region of Abruzzo: classical, scientific and linguistic secondary schools, vocational colleges, industrial colleges, commercial colleges, catering colleges, art schools and special schools. Students will be able to participate individually or in groups or classes.
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ART 4. ARTISTIC SUPERVISION
The artistic supervision of the award is strategic to ensure the cultural value of the initiative and the international relevance of the project, which is fundamental to generate reciprocal opportunities for the participating students and schools, and to boost the image and tourism of the entire region of Abruzzo
Testifying to the validity of our project, from the very first edition we secured the artistic supervision of Achille Bonito Oliva, the most authoritative and respected art historian, critic and curator. In his clear, comprehensible manner, he is able to explain life in the artwork and vice versa, making art history accessible to everyone through a language that is meticulous and deeply philosophical, yet real and concrete, without frills or academic self-congratulatory tones. It is precisely the ongoing commitment to research and the proposed constructive relationships between artwork, history and the contemporary world that have allowed Achille Bonito Oliva to define the critical and literary boundaries of the Transavanguardia artistic movement as fundamental contemporary artistic research, recognizably Italian, which succeeded in propelling Italy to the forefront of international artistic debate. A lecturer in contemporary art history at the Faculty of Architecture of “La Sapienza” University in Rome, constantly engaged in the creation of events aimed at seeking out and promoting new talents, Oliva is undoubtedly one of the most active figures in the international sphere of contemporary cultural production. www.achillebonitoliva.com
The international artist for the first edition of the award is Oliviero Toscani. Known throughout the world as an advertising man, he has created corporate images and advertising campaigns for the most famous international brands: Esprit, Chanel, Fiorucci, Prénatal. As a fashion photographer he has worked for magazines including Elle, Vogue, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire and Stern. He was responsible for Benetton’s famous social-advertising campaigns until 2000 and founded Colors magazine and Fabrica, an international arts and modern communications research centre, whose premises were designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Fabrica has produced publishing projects, books, television programs, exhibitions and displays for the United Nations, the UN Refugee Agency, La Repubblica, Arte, MTV, RAI, Mediaset, and films that have won three jury prizes at the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals. Toscani’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and the Milan Triennale, and in the most prestigious museums in the world. A lecturer in visual communications at two universities, he has written three books on communications and won many prizes for his work: four Lions at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, the UNESCO Grand Prix, two Grand Prix d’Affichage, the Infinity Awards for Applied Photography in 1992, and several Art Directors Club awards in New York, Tokyo and Milan.www.toscani.com
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ART 6. THEME OF THE 2011–12 EDITION
“Razza Abruzzo: 1001 Lavori” . QThis theme invites Abruzzo students to photograph human faces and subjects, recounting the old and new trades that underpin the Abruzzo economy. The teachers involved will offer the students a study and research module on the region’s most representative trades that tell the story of its past, present and future.
This theme is inspired by the “Razza Umana” project by Oliviero Toscani, the international artist invited for the first edition, who will receive the award for the social value of his artistic research. “Razza Umana” is a photographic voyage that takes Toscani through the towns of Italy to document the faces of the Italians and the people who live in Italy, capturing their differences and their similarities. Three mobile workshops and a team of photographers headed by Toscani, will visit towns, cities and piazzas all over Italy to immortalize the morphological and social features of a country that is changing, creating a reportage on people’s faces. The photographs and videos taken during the shoots will be saved in a multimedia archive and featured in a series of touring exhibitions.
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ART 7. INTERNATIONAL JURY
Mario Botta, Elio Fiorucci, Silvia Evangelisti, Anna Mattirolo, are the first exceptional members of the artistic jury that, from the very first edition, will flank the artistic supervision of Achille Bonito Oliva in judging the works of the students in June 2012. The jury selected by the curator himself is strategically composed of international figures with a high intellectual profile, engaged in various types of cultural production with the aim of establishing close relations between contemporary art and promoting the local area and culture. Consequently invitations were extended to architects and historians (to recount the local area), art critics and artists (for aesthetic and visual narration), sociologists and fashion designers (for the style and costumes of the photographs), and university lecturers (popular taste).
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ART 8. EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE
In order to make a preliminary selection of works by students participating in the competition, a committee will be formed, chaired by a representative of the MIUR (Ministry of University Education and Research–Directorate General of the Abruzzo Schools Office) and composed of representatives of each of the participating institutions, in order to ensure maximum transparency of decisions and facilitate the emergence of the most deserving.
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ART 9. DEADLINES FOR THE 2011–12 COMPETITION
31 January 2012 – deadline for registering for the photography competition
Important: this deadline has been extended to 12 February 2012.
15 February–30 March 2012 – photography and portrait workshops in schools
15 April 2012 – deadline for competition entries
Each individual student may only enter a single photograph.
Each group or class may enter a single photograph for each subject on the given theme.
Each photograph entered must be accompanied by a descriptive text of the contents of the image and by a sealed envelope containing the printout of the entry details received by email following registration.
The photograph, text and entry details must be presented in a sealed envelope by 15 April 2012 to the academic office of the schools, which will forward it to the school’s representative for the prize, and in electronic format topremioscuole@fondazionearia.it
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ART 11. SPECIFICATIONS AND FORMATS OF THE MATERIALS
All photos entered in the competition must be submitted in both 30 x 30 cm format printed on matte-coated photo paper, and in Jpeg electronic format – 300 dpi resolution – pixel format 3600×3600.
The length of the descriptive text for each photograph entered in the competition must be 1500 characters including spaces, in Italian and English, font Times New Roman, 14 points, black, single line spacing, with 5 cm page margins on each side, printed on A4 80gsm white paper and mounted on 2 mm A4 format white Forex.
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ART 12. PRIZES
Prize/acknowledgement of artistic value awarded by the curator Achille Bonito Oliva to a great artist, and exhibition of his works. Each year the choice of the artist to receive the prize will coincide with the choice of the prize’s subject and will be at the curator’s discretion. An exhibition dedicated to the artist invited will be staged. The artist exhibition for the first edition in 2011–12 will be dedicated to Oliviero Toscani and his latest work “Razza Umana”, focusing on photographic analysis/research into the Italian human types.
Student First Prize: each year the most deserving student will be offered an internship/residency in the studio of the international artist to whom Achille Bonito Oliva awards the prize. For the 2011–12 edition, the Student First Prize will be a creative internship/residency in Oliviero Toscani’s studio.
Student Second Prize: the most deserving 30 works chosen by the juries will be purchased by the sponsors and the proceeds will go directly to the students or to the classes that made the works.
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ART 13. EXHIBITIONS AND WORKSHOPS
International exhibition: every year an exhibition dedicated to the work of the international artist will be staged in a prestigious local display venue, with specific characteristics of usability, accessibility and visibility.
Students’ exhibition: each edition features the staging of exhibitions dedicated to the students’ works.
Family workshops: these will be held for the visit to the international and students’ exhibitions.
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ART 14. CATALOGUE – SPECIAL AWARD
A catalogue/special prize will be produced, with critique by Achille Bonito Oliva. It will contain photographs of an important selection of works by the international artist and the most deserving works of the students, and will take the form of a newspaper, printed on low-cost, practical paper, but with high circulation for distribution at the major art fairs. Printed in Italian and English, it will be an important tool for national and international promulgation. It will also be a promotional tool for the most authoritative contemporary research and, at the same time, for the young people, schools and region of Abruzzo. Finally, it will be a place of international dissemination for the partners who will have their own space in the catalogue/special prize in return for funding, technical sponsorship, co-operation and offers of residencies, etc.
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ART 15. 2011–12 DATES
1) 30 November 2011 – Launch of the 2011–2012 Prize/ Achille Bonito Oliva meets Oliviero Toscani
2) Involvement of secondary schools
31 January 2012 – deadline for registration for the competition
15 February–30 March 2012 – photography and portrait workshops in schools
15 April 2012 – deadline for competition entries
3) Examination of the works by the educational and artistic juries
15 May 2012 – The educational jury selects 20 student works for each school
June 2012 – The artistic jury selects 400 works for the student exhibition
August 2012 – The artistic jury awards the first, second and third prizes
4) Mostra autore internazionale
luglio 2012 Achille Bonito Oliva premia Oliviero Toscani per il Progetto “Razza Umana”
luglio 2012 Inaugurazione mostra “Razza Umana” di Oliviero Toscani Studio
5) Student exhibition in four art schools, one for each of Abruzzo’s provinces
July 2012 – Inauguration of the “Territorio Abruzzo/Razza Umana” exhibition.
August 2012 – Workshops for families visiting the exhibitions
August 2012 – Prize awarded to the most significant work by students.
6) First prize
September 2012 – Prize/Internship for the winning student of the 2011–12 edition of the “Razza Abruzzo 1001 Lavori” photography award.
7) Launch of the new edition of the prize. October 2012 launch of the 2012–13 prize. Achille Bonito Oliva meets Gabriele Basilico to discuss the theme “Abruzzo: Opifici Industriali”.
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ART 16. TERRITORIAL CONTEXTS
Abruzzo: provinces of Chieti, L’Aquila, Pescara, Teramo
Project promoted by:
ARIA Fondazione Industriale Adriatica
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ART 17. PARTNERS AND SPONSORS
PATRONAGE
PARTNERS
TECHNICAL SPONSORS
MEDIA PARTNERS
SPONSORS
