ARGENTINA - OPEN CALL FOR AZCUY AWARD’S 3rd EDITION

The award was born in 2019 with the conviction that art represents a valuable contribution, not only for the buildings, but for the entire community. Its aims are to recognize and promote Argentine national artistic production, encourage the presence of the visual arts in urban and residential environments, and explore the link between art and architecture.

This year, the call invites artists to present a project specially conceived to permanently occupy one of the common spaces of the DONNA Reggia building, the third of the DONNA Series developments that the company is building in the neighborhood of Caballito, Buenos Aires. In this way, the award seeks to encourage the production of works that respond directly to the environment in which we live, activating new aesthetic, social, historical and architectural experiences. It is also a unique opportunity for artists to take their practice to new settings and scales.

The call, open and with scope to all of Argentina, is aimed at individual and / or collective, emerging or established, Argentine or foreign visual artists with a minimum of three years of residence in the country. Those interested in participating should visit www.premioazcuy.com . There they will find the terms and conditions of the award - which detail, among other things, the requirements that applicants and project presentations must meet; the award schedule, and documentation related to the building for which the work must be projected and the areas with the possibility of being intervened - which includes images, plans and 360 tours. It is also there where they must register to be able to send their proposal until August 26, 2021. In this instance, participation only implies submitting the proposal in a digital file through the website.

Despite the economic situation that the country is going through, AZCUY reaffirms its commitment to promote and disseminate national artistic production, and to generate a unique opportunity for the development of ideas and material experimentation in a context of dialogue with the jury in charge of project selection.

Five finalist projects will be selected, each of which will receive $80,000 to adjust and develop their proposals in depth before presenting them again to the Jury. After this instance, the winner will be selected, who will be awarded $1,200,000 and the production of his work, the costs of which will be assumed entirely by AZCUY. This will be launched after the winner has been announced, in dialogue with the artist and under his supervision.

The jury for this edition is made up of Victoria Noorthoorn (director of the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires), Claudia del Río (artist), Eduardo Basualdo (artist), Juan Canela (curator, artistic director, Z®ONAMACO; Ciudad from Mexico and associate curator, MAC, Panama), Alejandra Aguado (curator, Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires), Gerardo Azcuy (founder and CEO of AZCUY) and Sol Juárez (Creative and Innovation Project manager of AZCUY).

"Developing residential buildings implies influencing the way people live and the composition of the urban landscape, which is a huge responsibility," said Gerardo Azcuy. "For this reason, we appeal to the intersection between Art and Architecture to create attractive spaces that activate new aesthetic, social and cultural experiences in people's daily lives", he completes.

"It is with great joy thet we invite our artistic community to participate in this award that, for the third consecutive year, the Modern Art Museum organizes in alliance with AZCUY. We want to encourage all Argentine artists to participate and develop a work that will have the potential to transform the daily life of the neighbors who live with it and which will be an extraordinary experience of professional development for the participants”, said Victoria Noorthoorn.

The last award’s edition had 1,100 entries, among which the Mundo Imaginal project, by the artist Adriana Bustos, was the winner. This is currently under development and will be part of the DONNA Acqua building.

“I congratulate Azcuy and the Museum of Modern Art for making a great effort in organizing these awards. The city of Buenos Aires is characterized by the enormous number of artists and its culture. We have a great commitment to all of them to ensure that the sector and its talent continue to grow. Giving visibility to all the talent in our country is a top priority for us”, expressed the Minister of Culture, Enrique Avogadro.

AZCUY is a creative real estate company with more than 25 years of experience in Argentina dedicated to developing, designing, building and commercializing residential architecture in the Caballito neighborhood of the City of Buenos Aires. Its work seeks to achieve the best equation between design and sustainability, which is why it is oriented to favor the bond between people and nature, to take care of the environment through the responsible use of energy in its buildings and to generate a social impact and positive culture in the community.

The Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, a public institution under the Ministry of Culture of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, was created in April 1956 at the initiative of Rafael Squirru, its first director. From its beginnings, the Moderno was an avant-garde museum, a true home for Argentine artists, and a space dedicated to promoting the latest productions of all artistic disciplines. Today, 63 years after its foundation and after different stages of development, the Moderno has a headquarters in the San Telmo neighborhood dedicated to exhibiting its collection of modern and contemporary art, producing temporary exhibitions of national and foreign artists, whether individual or collective, and to generate a strong bond with the community through an intense program of educational and cultural activities aimed at the most diverse audiences.