National Arts Prize, 123 works selected in L'Aquila

In L’Aquila, the twentieth edition of the National Arts Prize was presented. The jury selected 123 works out of more than 400 applications, a ratio that alone conveys the scale of the selection process: for every work admitted, nearly three proposals are left out. Twenty-six academies took part in the competition, a sign of participation spanning much of Italy’s higher arts education system.

The initiative is promoted by the Ministry of University and Research and organized by the Accademia di Belle Arti dell’Aquila, with support from the Municipality. The choice of city is not incidental: L’Aquila has for years been carrying forward a reconstruction process that has also affected its cultural institutions, and hosting a national prize of this scale is part of that process.

The award ceremony will be held on Friday, 6 November, at the Teatro dell’Accademia. Around 200 students and teachers are expected to attend, an audience that signals how the prize functions not only as a showcase for the winners but also as a gathering moment for the entire student community of the participating academies.

The value of a competition like this is measured less in the names of the individual winners — which will only be known once the awards are announced — and more in its capacity to bring together different artistic practices, shaped in different schools and regions of the country. One hundred and twenty-three selected works out of a pool of more than 400 also mean one hundred and twenty-three languages, techniques, and generations of students who would not normally have the chance to be seen side by side.

It should be noted that, at present, the news comes from a single source, the statement by the Accademia di Belle Arti dell’Aquila picked up by a news agency; no further independent confirmations have emerged regarding the organizational details of this edition.

It remains to be seen, on 6 November, which works and which authors the jury has ultimately awarded among the 123 admitted to the exhibition.