News

The Academy of Fine Arts of Macereta awarded the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar with the 2019 Josef Svoboda Prize of Artistic and Creative Talent. In addition, the institution recognized him as Doctor Honoris Causa of the academy.

On March 27, the Bronx Museum (NY, USA) will present a collective exhibition that will focus on the role of human beings and their growing uselessness in an increasingly automated society. Useless: Machines for Dreaming, Thinking, and Seeing focuses on the long tradition of thought that characterized philosophers and writers who praised "uselessness" as a means to achieve spirituality.

The third edition of the Marcos Amaro Art Prize opens its inscriptions. Delivered by the Marcos Amaro Foundation (San Pablo, Brazil), the prize aims to promote contemporary artistic production by promoting the career of artists of medium career whose production is characterized by technical and narrative innovation.

With the eyes set on the future and the feet in the present, the second edition of the International Women's Film Festival takes place in Madrid (Spain). Committed with the training and education on the issues that threaten women, their role and their capabilities within the film industry, from March 25 to 31^st, the Spanish capital will witness more than 40 screenings of films written, directed, interpreted and produced by women.

With te presentation of Hasta que te conocí (Until I met you), the Colombian artist Gabriel Mejía Abad exhibits his most recent sculptural productions. Constituted as an individual exhibition at (bis) gallery  (Cali, Colombia), space that the artist inaugurated in 2014, Hasta que te conocí inaugurates this afternoon and will take place until March 22.

The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) celebrated the first scholarship awards for Puerto Rican artists. Thanks to the NALAC Fund For the Arts, ten projects presented by Puerto Rican artists will benefit from $ 25,000 to produce their works within the Caribbean country.

The Sala Alcalá 31 of the Comunidad de Madrid presents on February 25^th the Latinoamérica en las colecciones CA2M y Fundación ARCO (Latin American art in the CA2M and ARCO Foundation collections) exhibition. Under Manuel Segade’s curatorship, the exhibition includes productions of emerging and consecrated artists -some, even, never seen- that will be exhibited until April 29.

On February 13^th, the Americas Society presents Victoria Cabezas and Priscilla Monge: Give Me What You Ask For. Under Miguel A. López curatorship, it is the first time that the artworks of these two Costa Rican artists of different generations -Victoria Cabezas (1950) and Priscilla Monge (1968) - meet in the same space to establish a dialogue about the feminine role in contemporary art.

The first Vilcek Prize for Excellence was presented to the Chilean curator, Carmen C. Bambach. The award consists of recognizing the work of an immigrant who has developed a work with visible and positive effects on American society and the global scene. In addition, the person awarded receives a benefit of 100,000 U$D.

José Ángel Toirac was awarded with the National Prize for Plastic Arts in Havana, Cuba. This means the greatest recognition that the Caribbean country gives to Cuban artists. The celebration was held on January 26 in front of an imposing jury: Eduardo Roca Salazar (Choco), previous winner of the award, and the artists José Manuel Fors, Ever Fonseca, Ernesto Fernández, José Villa, Osneldo García, Nelson Domínguez, Pedro of Oraá and Lázaro Saavedra, among other artists. In addition, curators Hilda María Rodríguez, Maikel Rodríguez Calviño and Gabriela Hernández participated in the jury.

At Lab 3, the sound experimentation room in the Medellín Museum of Modern Art (MAMM) , the experimental installation Polifotonía by the Colombian artist Alba Fernanda Triana is exhibited. Visualizing the sound, Triana mutates the sonorous language into other, but without leaving a side the music essential qualities: time, frequency, rhythm, form, texture and density.

Less than a week away, Mexico City prepares for the most relevant art fair in Latin America. The 16th edition of ZONAMACO México Contemporary Art will be held from February 6 to 10 and will bring together more than 180 galleries from around the world. The works exhibited at the fair range from historical archives and works by modern artists to contemporary productions.

With the collaboration of the Univerity of Southern California, the Cuban artist Enrique Martínez Celaya will develop, from February 6, The Lecture Project. With previous accomplishments in his studio in Miami during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, the renowned thinkers, philosophers, historians and writers that are part of the program will give their lectures at Martinez Celaya’s studio in Culver City, California. Although there was a change of location, the program has not changed its thematic axis: reflect over the link between art and ethics.

May You Live in Interesting Times, the motto that Ralph Rugoff selected to use as theoretical-creative frame of the 58^th Venice Biennale fits extraordinary in the Brazilian Pavilion. Represented by the curator Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro and the duo of artists Bárbara Wanger & Benjamin de Burca (working partners since 2011), the Latin-American country will assume a very important political and social role in Venice reflecting the deepest traits of post-colonial and contemporary Brazilian culture, in its jewels as well in its decadences.

On February 2^nd  at Estancia FEMSA- Casa Luis Barragán, the curator Inti Guerrero inaugurates FRACCIONAR (FRACTIONATE), a multidisciplinar and collective exhibition. In order to build a universe that generates a reinterpretation of the modernist house -sanctuary of global architecture- built in 1948 in Mexico City, the exhibition brings together artworks of living artists and others that have transcended; design furniture and historical documentation.

Regarding the participation of Peru as the guest country at ARCOmadrid 2019, the Jan Mulder Collection presents the Estratos de un paisaje (Layers of a landscape) exhibition at Casa de las Américas in Madrid. Positioned as one of the most outstanding collectors of Peruvian and Latin American photography in the world, Jan Mulder brings to Spain 108 essential artworks for the evolution of the photographic medium in the Peruvian contemporary scene.

On January 30^th at Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma (Palma de Mallorca), the most developed artistic productions in the contemporary scene will share a room with traditional artworks by world and historically recognized artists.

On February 1^st, the University Galleries at Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters presents Black Mirror, and other Third World reflections-selections from the Mario Cader-Frech Collection. The exhibition will take place from February 1^st to March 16^th at the Ritter Art Gallery, and from February 15^th to April 6^th at the Boca Raton Campus.

From January 30 to April 21^st, Galeria do Torreão Nascente de la Cordoaria, in Lisbon, presents Criteria. Under the curatorship of the curator and Portuguese art teacher Miguel von Hafe Pérez, the exhibition will be made thanks to the collection of works from the ARCO / IFEMA Foundation Collection.

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) of the University of Pennsylvania will hold three presentations with the purpose of addressing political and social problems from new narratives. One of these exhibitions will feature the work of artist Cecilia Vicuña. Organized by Assistant Curator Meg Onli, the Chilean artist will exhibit Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen from February 1^st to March 31^st.

Since January 19^th, in the space recently inaugurated by the Murilo Castro Gallery (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) in Miami, artist Marcos Coelho Benjamin presents Aimless Geometry. Constituted by a series of sculptures, the exhibition will remain in the gallery until February 23^rd.

Within the 12^th Shanghai Biennial, the Colombian artist Miguel Ángel Rojas (Bogotá 1946) presented New El Dorado (A Wild Economy), two satellite photographs intervened and transformed into a mural. Under María Belén Sáez curatorship the artwork is inscribed in the PRO-REGRESS curatorial concept proposed by the Mexican curator Cuauhtémoc Medina in charge of the biennial curatorship.

As a part of the De gira por España (Touring Spain) cycle that the National Museum of the Prado celebrates for its bicentennial - during a month a painting of special relevance of the collection of the Prado Museum leaves its usual space to visit different museums of the country-, the Spanish Museum of Abstract Art of Cuenca receives in its rooms Francisco de Zurbarán’s San Francisco en oración (Saint Francis in prayer, 1659). Between the 22^nd of January and the 17^th of February Zurbarán’s artwork will give place to Un maestro antiguo entre artistas contemporáneos: Zurbarán en el Museo de Arte Abstracto Español (An ancient master among contemporary artists: Zurbarán in the Spanish Museum of Abstract Art) exhibition.

Until February 11^th, the Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano (ICPNA) opens the call for the ICPNA Contemporary Art Award 2019. Destined for Peruvian and foreign artists residing in Peru, the winner of the 2019 edition will be awarded with S / 30,000 (thirty thousand soles) and an individual exhibition.

In its 23^rd edition, the Arco Foundation "A" Awards for Collecting announced the winners. From individual private collectors to museums, the winners were six: Cleusa Garfinkel; CAAC MALI, Museum of Art of Lima; The Meadows Foundation; Bank of Spain Collection; H.E.F. Collection, Juan Entrecanales Azcárate, and Kells Collection (Juan Manuel Elizalde and Choli Fuentes). 

Looking forward for the 34^th São Paulo Biennial that will take place in 2020, the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo appointed Italian Jacopo Crivelli Visconti as the general curator of the biennial. Independent critic and curator, Crivelli Visconti lives in the Brazilian city where he completed a PhD in architecture at the Universidade de São Paulo.

With an inauguration on January 9^th at Punta del Este space of Galería del Paseo, the Argentine painter Juan José Cambre exhibited a series of works made in recent times. Cambre's geometric paintings occupied Galería del Paseo until yesterday afternoon, forming part of a series of short-term exhibitions.

With only months lasting for the most important event of the international art scene, Venice is preparing to celebrate the 58^th Venice Biennial. Founded at the end of the 19th century, the Italian city biennial reinvents itself every two years to summon the most outstanding figures of the contemporary scene. Under Ralph Ruggof general curator of the biennial proposal, May You Live in Interesting Times will is the leitmotiv which will transform Venice from May to November inti an art factory.

On January 22^nd at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, 1975) presents Finding Oneself Outside. Under Natalie Bell’s curatorship, the exhibition aims to describe the consequent sensations of study and experience in foreign cultures.

At El Museo del Barrio (New York, USA) February brings an unprecedented exhibition of the Chilean visual artist Alejandro Jodorowsky (Tocopilla, 1929). Best known for his filmography, under the curatorship of María Inés Rodríguez Jodorowsky will present at El Museo a series of literary works and visual archives that were never published. In addition, records of his theatrical works and performances made in Paris throughout the 50s within the Panic movement will be exhibited.