- With a maximum budget of 145,000 euros in this first call, it is the most important artistic competition, in terms of economic endowment, that has been carried out to date by the Culture Department of the City Council.
- The project foresees the creation of a circuit of sculptures, in bronze and life-size, of characters from movies and literary works set in the city. These will have QR codes with all the information about each piece.
- The characters chosen for this first phase are Doña Manuela and the Aragonese boy, both from the novel «Arroz y Tartana» by Blasco Ibáñez, and Mortadelo and Filemón, from the movie «La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón» by Javier Fesser.
- The deadline for submitting applications for participation, individually or as a team, will be 15 calendar days from the publication of the call on the city council’s website.
The Local Government Board has approved the rules of the artistic competition, with the intervention of a jury, for the design, production, and installation of the first three sculptural pieces of the literary and cinematographic characters route in the city of València. The City Council of València initiates the process for the selection of the artist or artists who will be in charge of shaping this initiative. With a maximum budget of 145,000 euros for this first call, it is the most important artistic competition, in terms of economic endowment, that has been carried out to date by the Department of Cultural Action, Heritage, and Cultural Resources.
As explained by the councilor responsible for the area, José Luis Moreno, «over the centuries, València has been the setting for numerous movies and literary works, inspiring many writers and filmmakers who have immortalized our city in their works and have contributed to popularizing it in the collective imagination. With the aim of reclaiming València as a fictional setting, the current municipal Government has promoted the creation of a sculptural route to represent some of the most emblematic characters from literature and the seventh art linked to our city and to pay tribute to the authors who brought them to light.»
«With this initiative,» the councilor added, «we also seek to encourage artistic creation and promote the participation of artists in the revaluation of our cultural heritage.» The project foresees the creation of a circuit of life-size sculptures of characters from movies and literary works set in the city of València. The statues, in bronze and figurative in nature, will be placed in the locations where the stories unfold, and will have QR codes to access all the information about each of them. The idea is for them to integrate into the urban landscape and daily life of the city, inviting residents and visitors to discover them in their original context.
The characters chosen for this first phase are Doña Manuela and the Aragonese boy, both from the novel «Arroz y Tartana» (1894) by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and Mortadelo and Filemón, from the movie «La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón» (2003) by Javier Fesser. The first two will be installed in the Market Square, while the characters created by the cartoonist Francisco Ibáñez will be located near Alta Street, in the El Carmen neighborhood, just a few meters away from the future Comic Center of València, also promoted by the Department of Cultural Action, Heritage, and Cultural Resources, as well as from the residential building that was featured in the movie as the famous comic strip «13 Rue del Percebe.»
Requirements for participation and first phase of the competition
According to the competition rules, it will consist of two phases: an open preselection to all interested artists, and a second phase where only the five proposals with the highest scores will have access. The winner will be chosen from the finalists and will be responsible for creating the mentioned pieces. Either a single artist can be selected for all sculptures or one for the two sculptures of the literary route and another for the cinematographic route group.
The competition is open to individual or team participation, from artists with proven experience in the field of sculpture, without nationality or residence restrictions. The jury will positively value the knowledge of the candidates about the Valencian cultural context, especially regarding literary, historical, and artistic heritage, as the proposal must be integrated into the city’s cultural identity and contribute to the dissemination of its literary and cinematographic figures.
Proposals must be formalized exclusively through the electronic headquarters of the València City Council through the procedure of «Uncatalogued Requests» at the following link: it must be clearly indicated: «Request for participation in the artist selection competition for the literary and cinematographic route.» The deadline for submitting applications will be 15 calendar days, counted from the day following the publication of the call on the municipal website.
Once the deadline for submitting applications has ended, the provisional list of admitted persons will be published on the municipal website, and a period of ten days will be opened to correct incomplete applications, provide the documentation that was not presented correctly, or is missing, as described in the rules. After the correction period, the definitive list of persons admitted to the preselection will be published on the same website.
Interested individuals must attach to the participation request a curriculum vitae detailing professional and artistic background, including training and experience in the field of sculpture (maximum 2 pages). Additionally, a portfolio of previous works, with images and descriptions of at least three previously made sculptural works, preferably of public nature (maximum 30 pages); and a justification memo of suitability to carry out the commission (maximum 2 pages).
An independent jury will evaluate the proposals received in the preselection phase according to the following criteria: academic or technical training (up to 20 points), demonstrable experience in public sculpture projects (up to 40 points), and suitability of the artist for carrying out the commission, based on previous works and a motivation letter (up to 40 points). From all the applications, five finalists will be selected, who will move on to the next and final phase of the competition.
Second phase and jury decision
The finalist artists must submit a sketch on an A4 sheet of the sculpture of the Aragonese boy character from the novel «Arroz y tartana» by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and/or a sketch of the sculptural group «Mortadelo and Filemón.» The deadline for submitting these sketches will be 15 calendar days from the publication on the website of the five preselected finalists. They can submit to one or both commissions and will receive a fee of 250 euros for the development of each sketch.
The jury will evaluate the proposals and select one or two people from the finalists. The decision will be final and will be based on the following criteria: technical quality (up to 40 points, evaluating design skill and feasibility of execution); fidelity of the sketch to the literary and/or cinematographic character and adaptation to the essence of the novel or movie (40 points); and integration into the urban environment (up to 20 points, evaluating how the artwork interacts with the installation space).
The jury will include the councilor of Cultural Action, Heritage, and Cultural Resources, José Luis Moreno, or a delegate, technical staff from the Heritage and Artistic Heritage Service of the City Council, from the Museum of Fine Arts of València, and from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). Additionally, the jury will include the philologist and writer Francisco López Porcal, author of the literary route, and the journalist Carlos Aimeur Urios, author of the cinematographic route.
This jury will decide which artist or team of artists will create the two sculptures and the sculptural group included in the competition. The jury may declare the competition void if no proposal meets the minimum quality criteria. The total maximum budget for this first call amounts to 145,000 euros (taxes included): 65,000 euros for the cinematographic route sculptural group (Mortadelo and Filemón) and 80,000 euros for the two literary characters by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (40,000 per sculpture).
