Venice, 16th February 2005

c a s T i N g announces the name of its Call for Artists' winner: Gerardo Gimona.

He was distinguished among the 12 pre-selected candidates for his personal characteristics that render him perfect for promotion within the system of contemporary art. The winner was elected by a jury composed of Angela Vettese, Cesare Pietroiusti, Pierluigi Sacco, Carlo Montanaro, Saverio Simi de Burgis and the members of casTiNg which had not seen none of the artists' work. What determined the choice was the image that the candidate managed to communicate through his personality, his originality, his ability to communicate, his intelligence and his awareness of today's art system: abilities that are useful to anyone who has aspirations in the field of art.

The winner will receive as a prize the possibility to be promoted during the Venice Biennale 2005 mainly through the use of advertising posters appended around the city. Furthermore he will have the possibility to participate in different events connected to the venetian exhibition, occasions in which he will have to use his communication skills in order to arouse an interest around his persona and eventually his works.

All received material from the first phase of the competition will be visible on our website www.artcasting.net which will host all relative documents of the entire process. The posted material is particularly interesting since it presents a view of the situation of contemporary artists in seek of their fame. On the site you can already find the materials sent by the 12 pre-selected candidates, their answers on the competition's questionnaire and their CV's, including those of the winner.

Venice, 3rd February 2005

The following candidates were selected to present themsleves on casTiNg live, on the 16th of February, in front of our illustrious jury. The amount of material we received was enormous (158 candidates), various and very interesting, therefore we had a hard time to reach this first verdict - based upon the answers to the questionnaire, upon the photographs and upon the resumes that we considered suitable to our final goal, but unfortunately we had to limit ourselves to 12 persons.
In a while, we will publish all the material that we received on our web site; casTiNg's website is going to be our notice board in which we will present all the process of our ongoing project until the grand finale in June, when the winner will be promoted through posters put up accross the city during the inaugural weeks of the Venice Biennale. The site will be promoted and continuously updated starting from the second half of February.

And finally, here are the names of the 12 candidates selected for the Casting live (in alphabetical order):

01. Alvise Bittente / Italy
02. Andros / Italy
03. Angelo Bianco / Italy
04. Danica Mracevic / Bosnia and Herzegovina - Croatia
05. Gerardo Gimona / Argentina - Spain
06. Justin Thompson / USA - Italy
07. Loredana Musumeci / Italy
08. Mariachiara Cardini / Italy
09. Milena Nicosia / Italy
10. Pier Giorgio De Pinto / Italy
11. Simone Lammardo / Italy
12. Tiziano Paulon / Italy