OPEN CALL: FOURTH EDITION OF THE ALA ART PRIZE

For the 2024 edition, the ALA Art Prize aims to reflect on the nuances of meaning in the concept of care by proposing “Notes on taking care” as the subject matter of the award. What does taking care mean today? Of oneself, of the other from oneself, of things, of art? “To Care”, “To Cure”, listening to needs, allowing time. It is an emotional work, a re-generative action of physical and symbolic bodies.

The open call is intended as a moment of reflection to explore the phenomenology of care through visual languages. Without hesitating to investigate the risks related to excessive care.

The 2024 edition invites us to imagine “taking care” as a social, cultural and political experience, stimulating reflection on power dynamics, on the  bonds of mutual dependency and on the creation of a community based on sharing and collective care: practices as narratives, in order to reconsider the boundaries between the public dimension and the private sphere, offering new perspectives on care as a form of investigation and documentation on human relationships, vulnerability and attention to other people’s lives.

Besides reflecting on this edition’s theme, artists will present a site-specific original project, purposely designed to be placed in one of the common spaces at ALA Headquarters, in the Mediterranean Theater of the Mostra d’Oltremare in Naples.

The winning project will be awarded a 10,000 EUR cash prize in order to cover the production costs of the work. Also in this edition, the artist will be granted 2,000 EUR fee. A publication with the winning work and the activities of ALA For Art during the year will complete and enrich the project. Deadline to apply: April 10^th, 2024.

Like previous editions, the jury will consist of international critics and curators such as Giovanni Carmine, Director of the Kunst Halle of San Gallo and curator of Art Basel Unlimited, Eugenio Viola, Chief Curator at MAMBO—Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá and Alessia Volpe, Exhibition Manager at the Bourse de Commerce—Pinault Collection in Paris.

The winning work will become part of the ALA Corporate Art Collection, joining the works of Bea Bonafini, Acque, Amare (2023), Alberto Tadiello, Luciferasi (2022), and Mariangela Levita, UP (2021), respectively awarded in the third, second and first edition of the ALA Art Prize, along with the works by Giulia Piscitelli, Andrea Bolognino, Antonio Della Guardia and Giorgia Garzilli—acquired thanks to the ALA For Art Acquisition Program in 2023 and 2022 with the purpose of enriching the ALA collection.