START21ART Competition Prospectus

NADACIA KUBIKUM, with the support of CENTRAL ART REGISTER, hereby announces the 6th year of the Czech-Polish-Slovak fine-arts competition intended for selected fourth-year students of art-oriented schools under the title START21ART.

The objective of the Competition is to support and promote the work of young artists at the outset of their professional careers; to prepare them for artistic practice and the artistic profession, to assist them in gaining experience and authorial skills, and to enable them to present themselves to the wider public through the on-line environment.

Conditions of the Competition:

The Competition is open to any art-oriented school operating in the territory of the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic or the Republic of Poland, whose proportion of artistic fields/programmes constitutes at least 50% of all fields/programmes it provides and which registers on www.start21art.sk for the Slovak Republic, on www.start21art.cz for the Czech Republic and on www.start21art.pl for the Republic of Poland.

The school selects the students who will represent it! However, it may nominate a maximum of 10% of all its students of the final (fourth) year of artistic fields/programmes. (One nominated Contestant per every commenced ten students of artistic fields/programmes.) The nominated student must have reached the age of majority at the time of registration into the Competition.

The Competition allows the Contestant to be supervised during the Competition by a teacher of the Nominating School. The Contestant shall state the name of such teacher – Mentor – upon registration of his or her Competition Work.

Each student may submit to the Competition one Work created exclusively for this Competition. Prior to the Competition, the Work must not have been exhibited anywhere or entered in any other competition.

• Theme for this year of the Competition is: "Horizonty"
• Technique used shall be at the free choice of the Author.
• Dimensions of the Competition Work:
  • minimum: 29.7 x 42 cm
  • maximum: 100 x 100 cm
• The Work must be signed by the Author and labelled on its reverse with a description of the Work (title, author, year of creation, technique used, theme, brief description).
• Where the Work is a graphic print or a photograph, the Author shall label the first original authorial print of the graphic work or photograph.
• The Work must be photographed from both the front and the reverse together with the label.
• A further condition for registration of the Work is the submission of at least one contextual photograph showing the Work installed in a physical environment (for example, hung on a wall or placed on a stand or easel), so that the Work is depicted in space.
• Where the Work is a digital work, it must be printed and prepared for use in a physical environment; the contextual photograph shall depict the Work in such printed and prepared form. In the event of the sale of such a digital Work at the auction, the Contestant shall be obliged to dispatch the Work to the buyer in such printed and prepared form.
• Upon registration of the Work, the Contestant shall enter the information concerning the Work, in particular its title and description, primarily in the English language; the Contestant may subsequently also enter such information in the official language of the Nominating School.
• The Work shall be evaluated on-line on the basis of its digitised form.
• This must satisfy the required parameters and quality: a minimum of 3,000 px and a minimum resolution of 72 dpi; the maximum file size (digitised form of the Work) is 10 MB; the permitted formats for the uploaded file are JPEG, SVG, PNG.

At Level I of the Competition, the Competition Works are evaluated by a jury composed of representatives of the Nominating Schools and further representatives from the field of artistic practice and education, separately for the Slovak Republic and, separately for the Czech Republic and separately for the Republic of Poland. Each participating school may nominate to Level I of the Competition one juror from the country of the nominating school. Further representatives from the field of artistic practice and education shall be nominated, separately to the jury for the Slovak Republic, separately to the jury for the Czech Republic and separately to the jury for the Republic of Poland, by the Organiser of the Competition.

The Competition Works are evaluated in the final of the Competition by a joint jury for the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and the Republic of Poland. The jurors of the final jury shall be nominated by the Organiser of the Competition, whereby the members of such jury may, but need not, be jurors from Level I. All winning Works from Level I shall advance to the final, i.e. 21 Works from the Slovak Republic, 21 Works from the Czech Republic and 21 Works from the Republic of Poland (a total of 63 Works, hereinafter also referred to as TOP63). The final of the Competition shall take place on the website www.start21art.eu.

The Organiser of the Competition is entitled to exclude from the Competition any Works in respect of which a reasonable suspicion arises of plagiarism or other infringement of the copyright of third parties. Before adopting a decision to exclude a Work, the Organiser shall allow the Nominating School and the Contestant a reasonable period to comment on the suspicion and shall at the same time obtain an expert opinion from at least one juror or Mentor of the Competition. More detailed conditions are set out in the Competition Rules.

Schedule of the Competition:

21. 9. 2026	announcement of the START21ART,
21. 9. 2026 – 30. 9. 2026	registration of the school on www.start21art.sk, www.start21art.cz or www.start21art.pl (depending on the country in which the school is based) via the on-line form,
1. 10. 2026 – 21. 11. 2026	registration of the student and his or her Competition Work on www.start21art.s, www.start21art.cz or www.start21art.pl (depending on the country in which the school is based) via the on-line form,
1. 10. 2026 – 21. 11. 2026	registration of jurors on www.start21art.sk, www.start21art.cz or www.start21art.pl (depending on the country in which the school is based) via the on-line form,
1. 12. 2026 – 12. 1. 2027	evaluation of the Works by the jury,
21. 1. 2027	publication of the results of Level I of the Competition,
1. 2. 2027 - 21. 2. 2027	evaluation of the final Works by the jury on www.start21art.eu,
23. 2. 2027	publication of the results of the final of the Competition on www.start21art.eu,
26. 2. 2027 – 28. 2. 2027	ONLINE STAR voting,
1. 3. 2027 – 21. 3. 2027	auction of all Competition Works on www.kubikum.com,
24. 4. 2027	handover of the prizes.

Prizes:

• EUR 2,121 for schools from all three participating countries (SR, CR and PL) whose students are ranked 1st in the given state, intended for the further development of art education,
• monetary prizes at Level I of the Competition in each of the participating states (SR, CR, PL) for those ranked 1st to 3rd: 1st place EUR 630, 2nd place EUR 420, 3rd place EUR 210,
• participation in the jury for the Level I evaluation in the next year of the Competition for students ranked 1st at Level I,
• monetary prizes in the final of the Competition for those ranked 1st to 3rd from the TOP63: 1st place EUR 3,000, 2nd place EUR 2,000, 3rd place EUR 1,000, whereby all such prize-winning Works (their physical medium) shall be assigned to the auction in accordance with the Competition Rules, while the unlimited royalty-free licence to use the Work in any manner remains granted to the Promoter under the Licence Agreement,
• the ONLINE STAR prize in the amount of EUR 210 for the winner of the on-line public vote held on the Organiser's website among the TOP63 Works, in which each natural person is entitled to cast his or her vote only once,
• a commemorative publication featuring the Works and profiles of all participating Students for each Contestant from the TOP21 in CR, the TOP21 in SR and the TOP21 in PL,
• in-kind prizes determined by the Promoter of the Competition or the partners of the Competition, and registration on the KUBIKUM portal for 1 year with the KUBIKUM GOLD package and 1 confirmation of registration in respect of the Competition Work, whereby an author's certificate shall not be issued automatically and shall be provided only upon the Contestant's request and only in respect of Works included in the auction in accordance with the Competition Rules, for all participants,
• registration on the KUBIKUM portal for a second year with the KUBIKUM GOLD package, 5 authors' certificates and 5 confirmations of registration for Works sold through the KUBIKUM register, for students ranked 1st to 3rd in the final,
• inclusion of Works that have advanced to the final, including the prize-winning Works, in the public auction in accordance with the Competition Rules, whereby the author of an auctioned Work shall receive 80% of the hammer price (20% being received by Nadácia KUBIKUM in support of the arts), and where payment to the Author shall be released by the Organiser only following confirmation of receipt of the Work by the buyer.

Income from the sale of a Work, as well as monetary prizes and other monetary considerations provided to the winners pursuant to the Competition Rules, are subject to taxation in accordance with the legislation in force at the time of their payment, in particular Act No. 595/2003 Coll. on Income Tax, as amended, and the relevant legal regulations of the Czech Republic and of the Republic of Poland. Where so required by the applicable legal regulations governing the taxation of the Contestant's income, withholding tax in respect of the relevant monetary prize, payment from the sale of a Work or other monetary consideration may be levied and remitted by the Organiser as the payer of such income; in such case, the prize, payment or other consideration shall be paid out to the Contestant net of the withholding tax. Otherwise, the Contestants are obliged to settle on their own all tax and other obligations associated with such income or such prizes.

Final Provisions:

By registering in the Competition, the participants express their consent to the conditions set out in the Competition Rules. The Organiser of the Competition reserves the right to modify the rules and conditions of the Competition. Any amendment or modification of the Competition Rules shall be effected in the same manner as that in which the Competition was announced. The Competition Rules containing the detailed conditions and further information are available at www.start21art.sk.

This Prospectus and the legal relationships arising out of or in connection with it and the Competition shall be governed by the laws of the Slovak Republic. In the event of any inconsistency or any not fully consistent translation of this Prospectus, the Competition Rules or any related documents into other languages, the decisive language shall be the English-language version of such documents.