Talent Prize 2021

An exhibition dedicated to the Talent Prize, the international visual arts award organised by Inside Art and realised thanks to the support of the Fondazione Cultura e Arte.
The exhibition is dedicated to the winner, Lucia Cantò, the finalists and the special prizes.

The jury awarded first prize to the work Atti certi per corpi fragili, a sculpture by the artist Lucia Cantò, born in Abruzzo in 1995, whose artistic research is oriented between sculpture and writing, languages that she crosses on tiptoe, with a delicacy made up of intimate gestures and whispered dialogues.
The work selected by the jury consists of three sculptural groups, each of which is the result of the fusion of two vases obtained thanks to the collaboration of people dear to the artist, whom she called upon to participate. Each unit, with its colours and shapes, is a portrait in itself, the result of a collective work in which clay becomes the glue not only for the objects presented but also for the people involved. The material is thus nourished by a dense web of affections, consolidating the scaffolding that characterises Lucia Cantò's sculptural work.

This year, too, the jury chose a second and a third place among the finalists as a sign of recognition for their convincing and perspective research. They are Irene Coppola (second place) with the installation Schegge and Azzedine Saleck (third place) with the sculpture Long Distance. The other finalists are: Riccardo Banfi, with the photographic diptych Let's Dance / Hand (Riot), Gianluca Brando, with the installation qo, Giovanni Chiamenti, with the sculpture Chimera, Gaia De Megni, with the video the Mito dell’eroe, Federica Di Pietrantonio, with the video you had me at hello, Marcello Spada, with the sculpture Clunk and Elena Tortia with the installation miscrivo.

As with every edition, the winner and finalists are joined by special prizes, awarded by the supporters of Talent Prize 2021.
The Special Prizes go to: Max Mondini with the work Pennacchio (Special Prize "Emergenti") and Shenghao Mi with the work Midnight cowboy (Special Prize "Internazionale").
The UTOPIA Special Prize was awarded to Silvia Bigi for urtümliches Bild, an attempt to process the material of nocturnal dreams through artificial intelligence to show their image, stripped of cultural, environmental and social superstructures.
The Inside Art Special Prize goes to Gianni Politi for the painting Pieno di certezze e pieno di dubbi, a pictorial study based on the exercise of repetition, in which the artist attempts to portray the image of his father, who has disappeared, with the likeness of another man painted by Gaetano Gandolfi ("Studio per un uomo con la barba"), thus investigating the infinite possibilities of painting.

The Fondamenta Special Prize was awarded to Edoardo Manzoni for the sculpture Colpo di vento (Argo Maggiore), an installation that represents an attempt to reflect on and rediscover the animality that has always accompanied man and his tools.