Allegro Prize 2021 kicks off – an international competition for visual artists

Allegro and Contemporary Lynx are pleased to announce the second edition of the Allegro Prize competition with a prize pool of 50,000. PLN, the purpose of which is to support and promote art and to select new talent. The competition is open to visual artists of all disciplines who are students or graduates of the Academies of Fine Arts and Art Academies; and artists who have not completed their major (art) studies but have documented artistic activity. There are no age or regional restrictions, and the organizers have also waived entry fees.

Allegro Prize 2021. Contest to reveal new artistic talents

The first edition of the Allegro Prize competition, held in 2020, focused on supporting the cultural sector hard hit by the pandemic and was met with positive responses from visual artists. We received 1,651 applications from candidates from 79 countries, incl. From France, Great Britain or Canada. We want our actions to make Allegro one of the largest sales platforms and patron of contemporary art.

– says Jacek Weichert, Director of Culture, Entertainment, Collections and the Arts at Allegro.

The initiators of the Allegro Prize are: Allegro, which has run the Collectors’ District since 2018, promoting contemporary art and antiques, and Contemporary Lynx – an international, independent magazine dedicated to art, culture, photography, design and collecting. – The valuable prizes in this competition are not only high financial prizes, but also objective prizes, such as publishing the works of winning and outstanding artists in the pages of contemporary Lynx. And even more so, even if the artist is not awarded a prize, his request may become the beginning of cooperation. In order not to be unfounded, Paola Ciarska entered the first Allegro Prize. Although she didn’t win the competition, we invited her to create the cover of the magazine’s latest issue – says editor-in-chief of Dobromiła Błaszczyk and Sylwia Krasoń, the contemporary Lynx magazine.

By participating in the Allegro Prize, artists will have the opportunity to present their work to an eminent jury made up of representatives from the art world:

• Natalia Selevic (Curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, graduate of Central Saint Martins and Courtauld Institute London),
• Valeria Napoleon (collector and patron of many art institutions, such as the New York University Institute of Fine Arts and the Society for Contemporary Art),
• Rafa Milach (artist, photographer, since 2018 associate member of the prestigious Magnum Photos agency, lecturer at Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice)
• Andrzej Chyra (actor, director; for his role in K. Krauze’s “Dług”) was honored in the “Leading Male Role” category at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. In 2015 he directed the opera “Magic Mountain” by directors. Paweł Mykietyn, which was awarded Konrad Swinarski)

The organizers are Dobromia Błaszczyk & Sylwia Krasoń (art historians, editor-in-chief of Contemporary Lynx) and Jacek Weichert (director of culture, entertainment, collections and the arts at Allegro).

The jury will award three financial prizes: the main prize – 35,000 PLN, the second prize – 10,000 PLN, the third prize – 5,000 PLN, and 10 prizes. This year’s edition has been extended with a series of webinars joining the Allegro Prize community, which will present competition assumptions, and areas of support for artists – i.e. prizes, promoting creativity and selling their work.

In addition, Allegro representatives will present the capabilities of the platform. Allegro is a platform where, in addition to categories such as fashion or electronics, also white crows in terms of culture. Pablo Picasso, Jerzy Cusack, Eduard Dornick, Ryszard Winarsky or Wojciech Vangor – these are just a few of the many famous names whose works can be found in the Collections and Arts category on Allegro.

In the Collectors’ District, artworks are available from famous galleries, auction houses, and antiques shops, as well as coin offices and eligible entities authorized to sell gold, silver or diamonds. The most expensive piece of art at auction last year was Eduard Dornick’s Plac Zamkowy I, which sold for 44,000 PLN. In Collections and Art you can also find white crows, for example the first Polish stamp from 1860 (sold for more than 14,000 zlotys), or a 100 zloty banknote from 1830, sold for more than 162,000 zlotys.

Artists can participate in the Allegro Prize competition by submitting their portfolio at https://allegructze.pl/ and www.contporarylynx.co.uk/allegicultze, from 8 June to 28 September 2021. Announcing the list of 30 finalists: 16 November 2021. Winners announced: December 7, 2021.