The announcement of the winners, saturday 12 of July, marked the close of the 16th edition of the COMBAT PRIZE, an international contemporary art competition organised by the Blob Art ETS cultural association in partnership with the Municipality of Livorno and supported by the Tuscany Region, the Livorno Foundation, publishing house Sillabe, partner Opera Laboratori and leading expanded polystyrene manufacturer Poliart.
The jury, composed of Ilaria Gianni, Francesca Baboni, Angel Moya Garcia, Lorenzo Balbi, Andrea Bruciati, Davide Ferri and Stefano Taddei, has selected Dilan Perisan as the winner of the Combat Prize, worth ten thousand euros, for his work ‘Excavation of the Solaris’, for the following reasons, combined with the desire to reward an emerging artistic practice that expresses great potential: "There are works that are created in a particular circumstance of life and later become disorienting daily repetitions. The winning work impressed the jury with its ability to convey urgency, emotion and imagination from simple traces of matter and lived experience; a message that becomes universal from the personal, where fragments of one's private everyday life are transformed into witnesses of time and presence in an open and engaging process, of which we see the preliminary and current stages, but can only imagine, by identifying with them, the next ones or our own.”
For the Painting section, the jury awarded the prize to José Victor De Castro Negreiros for his work ‘Nozze d’argento’, for the following reason: "When the daytime, active dimension of the creative sphere fades away, alternating with night-time dreams, we are faced with a metaphysics of the fantastic, a metamorphic reflection in precarious balance between logic and irrationality. In the selected work, the “symbolic and spiritual” function is never outdated, because it is based on the very act of creating through the imagination, according to an updated and immanent mixed inventory."
Special mention from the jury to Nicola Bindoni.
For the Photography section, the jury declared Alessandro Truffa the winner with his work ‘Bee training – studies on domestication’, for the following reason: ‘Bee training by Alessandro Truffa is an image with a simple and essential presence, yet enigmatic at the same time, underpinned by a reflection on the relationship between man and nature, and capable, through details (such as the unfathomable overlapping of shadows on the palm of the open hand), of opening up spaces for the imagination and the invisible.’
Special mention from the jury to Lori Lako.
For the Graphics/Drawing section, the prize was awarded to Valeria Carrieri for her work ‘Dafne al contrario / Dafne suite’, for the following reason: "With Dafne al contrario / Dafne suite, Valeria Carrieri creates a site-specific work of extraordinary formal and conceptual intensity. The charcoal drawing, which unfolds like a mural frieze, reworks the figure of the nymph from classical mythology to offer a critical reflection on the patriarchal construction of the female folkloric imagination. The figures, both powerful and vulnerable, distance themselves from the aesthetic of the eroticised and silenced nymphet, often shaped by the male gaze, to claim an autonomous and plural subjectivity. Carrieri thus transforms the procession of nymphs into a parade of resistance: a community reclaiming its space and its voice. The choice of charcoal – a fragile and living material – reinforces the ephemeral yet incisive dimension of the work, evoking the deep connection between body, nature and memory. In the artist's vision, the nymph is no longer an object of desire but a subject of knowledge and tradition, the bearer of ancestral, vegetal and aquatic knowledge that resists erasure and appropriation.
Special mention from the jury to Bernardo Tirabosco.
The jury has declared Claudia Vetrano the winner of the Sculpture/Installation section with her work ‘Passeggero’, for the following reason: ‘The artist undertakes an investigation that probes in a unique way the idea of boundaries in a world that has become dystopian, while at the same time expressing the concept of an individual forced to move within a community increasingly devoted to social distancing.’
Special mention from the jury went to Agnese Oprandi.
Finally, in the Video - performance section, the jury awarded Mariana Ferratto with the work ‘Tutorials’ for the following reason: "For the poetic way in which she developed an act of reconciliation with her family's past, exiled after a military coup. For her attempt to record the organised resistance of political prisoners after they were subjected to a regime of isolation and inactivity as a method of physical and psychological destruction. And for her ability to construct a narrative about the sense of belonging of the second generation."
Special mention from the jury to Andisheh Bagherzadeh.
The Gallery Prizes, a special prize created in collaboration with five leading contemporary art galleries and the independent space SAC Spazio Arte Contemporanea in Livorno, consist of an exhibition project at their venues during the 2025/26 season, thus continuing the dialogue initiated during the award ceremony. The winners were:
the A Pick Gallery in Turin selected the artists Axel Gouala, Valeria Carrieri and José Victor De Castro Negreiros as winners
the Bologna-based gallery BoA Spazio Arte awarded the artists Michele Stagni and Francesca Mazzagatti
the LABS Contemporary Art gallery in Bologna awarded the prize to Bernardo Tirabosco and Riccardo Androni
the Mondoromulo arte contemporanea gallery in Castelvenere, Benevento, declared Nikko Mundacruz the winner
for the Nashira Gallery in Milan, the winner is Besnik Lushtaku
finally, the independent space SAC spazio arte contemporanea in Livorno selected the following winners: Gemma Mazzotti, Nikko Mundacruz, Marila Scartozzi and Francesca Filicaia.
The Poliart prize is awarded to Axel Gouala. Poliart, a leading company in the expanded polystyrene sector, will support the production of a new work by the artist.
The THE PLACE prize, promoted by the newly established marketplace THE PLACE together with the association Ultracontemporary Art Project aps (U-ART-P aps), in collaboration with Calcografica Petronilla, was awarded to Andrea Astolfi for his work Untitled (ceramolle, sugar technique, aquatint and drypoint on three zinc plates; plate 15x20 cm on sheet 25x35 cm).
Finally, the Popular Jury prize, based on the preferences expressed by the participating public, was awarded to Marcela Castaneda Florian for her work Architettura di sopravvivenza, La casa: ricchezza dell’urgenza.
