CTAO exhibition season 2023-2024

CON-TEMPORARY Art Observatorium accepts artists submissions to participate in the next exhibition season 2023-2024.
Artists can apply right away to the following group exhibitions “Art of Freedom 2”, “Conceptual Matters” and “Primal Noesis”, as well as solo or double-solo exhibitions:

“Art of Freedom 2” – Group exhibition
2nd edition of the exhibition cycle and Best Art of Freedom recognition

Location: CON-TEMPORARY Art Observatorium – Lavagna, Italy
Accepted artworks: bidimensional, wall installed, including video art; tridimensional with limitations
Period: three weeks, t.b.a. 2023
Submission deadline: 30 November (flexible)

FREE THEME: differently than all our group exhibitions, the cycle “Art of Freedom” is characterised by the absence of a leading theme, giving total freedom to the artists, who are chosen on personality, expression and contents, so that they can freely propose their most personal view. This does not prevent them to freely take inspiration from freedom and to express in that sense, since art IS freedom, a value that is always under threat at any time and place.

Send your application or ask for more information to contemporaryartobservatorium@gmail.com with subject “Art of Freedom 2” including details on your expression (web links or attach statement, cv, portfolio, etc.)
All applications will be carefully examined and the artists compatible with the curatorial intents will be contacted.

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“Conceptual Matters” – Thematic group exhibition

Location: CON-TEMPORARY Art Observatorium – Lavagna, Italy
Accepted artworks: bidimensional, wall installed, including video art; tridimensional with limitations
Period: three weeks, 2024
Submission deadline: ongoing, t.b.a.

Theme: The exhibition aims to offer a panorama on the actual developments and the evolution of Conceptual Art, how it is being interpreted by contemporary artists, analysing how the concept is crucial for an artwork in a society dominated by information.
Somebody may comment that all art has always been conceptual, since an artwork is born in any case from the artist’s will of creating it and how; but this consideration can be easily objected if we consider Surrealist Automatism, abstraction, Pittura Analitica, asemic writing and other genres of unconscious art that involve the estrangement from conceptualism and reasoning. Therefore, the artworks of this exhibition focus on the primacy of human conscience: the idea, expressed in a direct way or conveyed by the form.

Tags: idea, concept, representation, expression, principle, aphorism, writing, inscription, illustration, sarcasm, seriousness, exhortation, absolute, pictogram, cartoon, poetry, satire, symbolism, semiotics, thought, logic, lewitt, kosuth, duchamp, arte povera, minimalism, pop, dada, meme, content, objectivity, evidence, reality, model, example, critique, society, scheme, instruction, communication, plan, decision, will, word, activism, analysis, documentation, interdisciplinary, performance, demonstration, obviousness, assumption, theory, form, explanation, description, captions, title, narration, experience, comprehension, question, summary, centrality, importance, value, authority, altruism

Send your application or ask for more information to contemporaryartobservatorium@gmail.com with subject “Conceptual Matters” including details on your expression (web links or attach statement, cv, portfolio, etc.) and the proposed artworks, possibly with a sentence about thematic relevance.
All applications will be carefully examined and the artists compatible with the curatorial intents will be contacted.

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“Primal Noesis” – Thematic group exhibition

Location: CON-TEMPORARY Art Observatorium – Lavagna, Italy
Accepted artworks: bidimensional, wall installed, including video art; tridimensional with limitations
Period: three weeks, 2024
Submission deadline: ongoing, t.b.a.

Theme: An exhibition to figure the possibility of a return to harmony with nature, its cycles and its primal demands, yet keeping knowledge, ethics and virtue. History gave us examples of peaceful primitive civilisations that developed a cognition of cosmos and a morality much more than the current Homo technologicus who too often abuses of enormous potentialities in obtuse, flawed, pauperising or aggressive ways.
Dispelling the stereotype whereby a wild modus vivendi would be symptom of abjection or backwardness, the exhibition highlights how intelligence belongs to an inner noble soul and not to the appearance, and that knowledge is searching for the essence of things, so they are often expressed in an unsophisticated but archetypal way.

Tags: conceptual, tribal, sign, symbol, graffiti, primitivism, peace, intelligence, archetype, totem, petroglyph, gnosis, philosophy, respect, naturalism, environment, adjustment, life, wildness, essence, minimalism, frugality, cosmos, knowledge, inspiration, virtue, nobility, civilisation, wisdom, justice, archaeology, antiquity, rurality, rustic, bucolic, country, retro, survival, erudition, raw, naked, simplicity, ingenuity, infantilism, naive, normality, humbleness, synthesis, foundations, spirituality, physicality, dexterity, drawing, expression, needs, imagination, dimension, ecology, economy, polis, conscience, meaning, form, representation

Send your application or ask for more information to contemporaryartobservatorium@gmail.com with subject “Primal Noesis” including details on your expression (web links or attach statement, cv, portfolio, etc.) and the proposed artworks, possibly with a sentence about thematic relevance.
All applications will be carefully examined and the artists compatible with the curatorial intents will be contacted.

http://ctao.eu/calls.html