Master Artist talent kicks off: "a MasterChef of art: for the public it will be very interesting"

An X-Factor (or MasterChef if you prefer) ofcontemporary art is born, entirely online: a talent show called Master Artist, broadcast online in April 2021 on the Facebook page of Luca Rossi Lab, the project of the artist of the same name. The program will feature a challenge among seven artists who will result from the preliminary selections (applications by March 16, 2021, by sending documentation of three artworks and a short biography to lucarossicampus@gmail.com) and who will participate in six live streaming: each live broadcast will see the artists face some tests that will decree a winner and an eliminated artist. Evaluating the artists will be three judges: Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, critic, art curator and lecturer at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, former director of the Gamec Museum in Bergamo and a leading figure in the Italian art system; Luca Rossi, artist, critic and popularizer, a controversial personality committed since 2009 to unconventional planning; and Marco Rosa, collector.

The idea, Luca Rossi explains, was born in 2017: “We will try to select seven artists,” he declares, “who demonstrate that they are not tied to a single expressive medium but who show that they decline a specific artistic aptitude in different forms.” Why a talent show to search for new contemporary Italian artists? “The Master Artist,” explains Luca Rossi, “must have a valuable way, attitude and vision with respect to our contemporaneity. From this attitude then will descend the works of art as ’witnesses’ of this value. The work, even at the unconscious level, always communicates to us a truth of its own, a way of seeing and facing the world. The application of this way-attitude to our lives is the true value of the work of art.”

The contest formula

As for the formula, Master Artist “wants to decline in contemporary art some successful characteristics that we see for example in MasterChef Italia. Each episode will be given tests that invite artists to create a work of art with given materials and in a limited time. Exactly like a recipe designed for our minds and eyes. So it will be very interesting for the audience to see how the artists manage to pass the different tests and how the judges will openly judge the different works created.”

During the six streaming episodes there will be two types of tests: the “24 Hours” test (with materials assigned by the judges, each artist will have to create a work of art in the 24 hours before the live streaming) and the “Mystery Box” test (during the live streaming with given materials each artist will have to create a work of art in 15 minutes). Each episode may feature outside guests who in turn may inspire the rehearsals by addressing different themes chosen by the three judges. At the end of the talent, the winner or winner will be awarded a special prize.

A talent with. educational value

In the intentions of the organizers, Master Artist will also take on a... educational value. According to Luca Rossi, contemporary art is undervalued in Italy. “I have been dealing with these issues on a daily basis for 12 years,” he says, “and I can say that in Italy, but the situation is not so different abroad, we have problems with education and dissemination. On the one hand, we should review the training of artists, curators and practitioners, and on the other hand create a space of opportunity where a wide audience can be interested and passionate about contemporary art. At the moment we are exploiting only 5 percent of the possibilities of contemporary art in Italy.”

As a result, talent for artists also takes on a educational value. “In Italy, and not only in Italy, we need to renew the popularization referring to contemporary art. The education programs we know or some popularization books, struggle more and more in engaging and exciting a wide audience that goes beyond the curious and insiders. In this contest, the stages of making and devising a work of art will emerge; we will see the value of contemporary art emerge and put the works ’on the ropes’. I think that in this way the public can really get passionate about contemporary art.”

Master Artist talent kicks off: "a MasterChef of art: for the public it will be very interesting"

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.