This Is Not a Pizza Box

It Was Never About the Pizza

Open Call to Artists

Opens: June 5th | 6:00pm

Closes: June 25th | 5:00pm

SBDAC’s Grand Atrium

Entry: Donations

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239-333-1933

Exhibits open during Art Walk on the 1st Friday of every month. 6pm-10pm

Gallery hours Monday through Friday 10:00am – 5:00pm

Extended Gallery Hours most Fridays until 10pm

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Donation Entry Fee

Overview

Inspired by René Magritte’s famous phrase, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”), this year’s annual juried open call exhibition challenges artists to transform one of the most ordinary objects of contemporary life: the pizza box.

“This Is Not a Pizza Box” asks artists to question perception, function, symbolism, and illusion by using a pizza box as the foundation for original artwork. Paint it, sculpt it, deconstruct it, reinvent it, or disguise it entirely. What begins as packaging becomes artifact, dreamscape, contradiction, relic, portal, or impossibility.

The pizza box is no longer merely a container. It becomes a canvas for surrealism, conceptual exploration, humor, memory, and transformation.

Selected works will be exhibited as part of an immersive opening night experience inspired by surrealist art, absurdity, and the blurred line between object and meaning.

Awards will include:

Best in Show
SBDAC Choice Award
People’s Choice Award

Juros:

Sallie Hirshberg, Art Historian, Founder and CEO of SH Modern Art

Neil Volz, Alliance for the arts executive director

Tim Smith, Artist, Art Teacher.

This is not a pizza box.
Or perhaps it never was.

Submission Guidelines:

All entries must incorporate a pizza box as a primary part of the piece.
Any medium is welcome (2D, 3D, multimedia, interactive, etc.).
You may use a clean new box or a recycled one.
All works must be ready to hang or display.

Deadline to submit: May 26th, 2026
Exhibition Dates: June 5th – 25th
Location: Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center, Fort Myers, FL, Grand Atrium
Submission Fee: $30