Arte Laguna Prize. 240 Artists Reflect on Our Times
Courtesy Arte Laguna Prize, Venice
What do today's artists have to say about the world we live in? One answer, inevitably partial but rich in perspectives, comes from Venice's Arsenale Nord, where the works of 240 finalists from the 20th and 21st editions of Arte Laguna Prize, the international contemporary art award, are on display until November 29, 2026. The exhibition brings together artists selected from thousands of applications submitted worldwide. Rather than following a single curatorial theme, it offers a survey of different artistic approaches and sensibilities, highlighting some of the issues shaping contemporary art: identity, memory, the environment, artificial intelligence, technology and the changing perception of the body. The diversity of the works also reflects the increasingly fluid boundaries between artistic disciplines. Painting, sculpture, photography, video, installations and new media coexist in a setting where technological experimentation meets more traditional practices. The finalists were selected by two international juries comprising curators and professionals from major cultural institutions. Among them are Yuko Hasegawa, former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Xiaoyu Weng, curator of Documenta 16, and Wang Chunchen, former curator of the Chinese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Alongside the main awards, the prize offers collaborations with galleries, foundations, companies and international residency programmes, providing artists with opportunities to develop their work beyond the Venice exhibition. Running concurrently at Tesa 98 in the Arsenale Nord is New Horizons, a group exhibition complementing the main programme. Twenty years after its establishment, Arte Laguna Prize serves above all as an observatory of international artistic production. Its distinctive character lies not in offering a unified interpretation of the present, but in revealing how differently, and sometimes contradictorily, artists attempt to make sense of it.