Olnick Spanu Art Program artist Francesco Arena is one of the five finalists of the Mario Merz Price, 2nd edition, art section.

The other finalists are Petrit Halilaj, Gili Lavy, Shahryar Nashat and Suha Traboulsi and they were shortlisted by members of the pre-selection judging panel, Marisa Merz (artist), Nicholas Cullinan (Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London) and Claudia Gioia (independent curator).

The five finalists will participate in a group exhibition (March 8 – May 21, 2017) at the Fondazione Merz, Torino (Italy), curated by Beatrice Merz and showcasing the most significant works by each of the finalists.
The public will be able to vote for their favorite artist by visiting the exhibition or logging into the website mariomerzprize.org

More information about the exhibition can be found here.

The International Mario Merz Prize was established with the desire on the one hand of commemorating Mario Merz, and on the other to launch a new project looking to the future of art and which, thanks to a wide international panel of experts, would make it possible to identify and highlight exponents in the field of art and in parallel enable composers to propose an innovative project for contemporary music.