FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE CISNEROS FONTANALS ART FOUNDATION (CIFO) ANNOUNCES THE RECIPIENTS OF THE 2018 GRANTS & COMMISSIONS PROGRAM AWARD AND CHANGES TO GLOBAL EXHIBITION PROGRAM

2018 Grants & Commissions Exhibition Will Be Presented Internationally at the

Centro Cultural Metropolitano in Quito, Ecuador

Photo: Left to right first row: Mid-Career Artist- Magdalena Atria (Chile); Emerging Artist- Fredman Barahona (Nicaragua);Emerging Artist- Rubén D´Hers (Venezuela); 

Left to right second row: Emerging Artist- Daniela Serna Gallego (Colombia); Achievement Award recipient, Horacio Zabala (Argentina); Emerging Artist- Laura Huertas Millán (Colombia);

Left to right third row: Emerging Artist- Víctor del Moral (Mexico); Mid-Career Artist- Lázaro Saavedra (Cuba); and Emerging Artist- Gala Berger (Argentina).

Miami, Florida (January 23, 2018) — The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) announces the recipients of the 2018 Grants & Commissions Program Award. The nine (9) awarded artists represent seven (7) countries across Latin America and are divided into three (3) categories: the Achievement Award recipient, Argentinean artist Horacio Zabala; Mid-Career Artists—Magdalena Atria (Chile) and Lázaro Saavedra (Cuba); and Emerging Artists—Fredman Barahona (Nicaragua), Gala Berger (Argentina), Víctor del Moral (Mexico), Rubén D´Hers (Venezuela), Laura Huertas Millán (Colombia), and Daniela Serna Gallego (Colombia).

The accompanying Grants & Commissions exhibition, which has traditionally been presented in Miami at CIFO Art Space, will become an international traveling exhibition program in 2018. This year, the award recipients will have the opportunity to present their work at the Centro Cultural Metropolitano in Quito, Ecuador. The exhibition will be on view and open to the public from October 6 through November 28, 2018.

The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation will continue to operate from Miami, and to produce groundbreaking scholarly exhibitions, books and programs. However, the foundation will no longer operate an exhibition space in Miami. This decision allows CIFO to focus on strengthening its collaborations with partner institutions to produce and tour internationally recognized exhibitions such as Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950, which is currently on view at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was on view earlier this year at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in Texas. This shift will enable CIFO’s world-class initiatives to be experienced by wider audiences around the world.

Following the closing of CIFO’s current exhibition, Triángulo: Loló Soldevilla, Sandu Darie and Carmen Herrera, on March 14, 2018, CIFO Art Space will host the New World School of Arts’ Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibition in April. CIFO Art Space will close to the public upon completion of this exhibition.

Said CIFO Founder Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, “While CIFO’s heart will always be in Miami—as will our operational offices—we are thrilled to be making the transition to an international exhibition model. CIFO’s partnerships with global institutions will ultimately bring our programs, and the vital work of Latin American artists, to a wider audience of art enthusiasts.”

“The Grants & Commissions Program is one of CIFO’s signature initiatives, deeply aligned with our mission to foster new work by emerging and established Latin American artists,” said Manuel de Santaren, President of CIFO. “The artists selected for this year’s program, representing a wide array of Latin American nations and cultures, are engaged in dynamic and important work that we are very proud to support.”

Grants & Commissions: Achievement Award

For the 2018 Grants & Commissions Program, Achievement Award winner Horacio Zabala has proposed Hypothesis for 25 Signs and 17 Monochromes, a continuation of his ongoing investigation into the combination of monochrome painting and mathematical signs. His work juxtaposing multiple paintings and multiple signs seeks to uncover previously unseen relationships: “To intuit minimal possible relationships is to perceive much more than what is actually seen,” he says. “Less is not more, but much more.”

Grants & Commissions: Mid-Career Artists

Magdalena Atria’s proposed work, Cogollo de Toronjil (Lemon Balm Shoot), will be a large plasticine mural that will emerge naturally and decisively from direct and intuitive manipulation of the material, taking its inspiration from the “simplicity and perfection” of the growth of a cluster of lemon balm. Lázaro Saavedra’s work, Mártires (Martyrs), takes as its subject the mutations of the concept of martyrdom as it relates to Cuban revolutionary ideals. With regard to martyrdom, says the artist, “In the Cuban context of the sixties and seventies, the sacrifice of life for ideals was invoked. At present, the social conscience perceives that ideals are sacrificed in the name of economic survival and that the former revolutionary guerrillas and their relays have been transformed into conservative entrepreneurs.” The performance-installation will be presented inside a constructed and enclosed golf course.

Grants & Commissions: Emerging Artists

Fredman Barahona’s Machete Dress is a performance art piece that takes the form of a dress constructed of machetes and knives, co-opting a symbol of Nicaraguan working class liberation to highlight the erasure of LGBTIQ identities from Latin American revolutionary narratives. Gala Berger’s Resistance Alliances adopts the form of a board game to explore the social history of feminisms in Latin America. Víctor del Moral’s paLíndro is a living installation that explores text in its graphic, sculptural, choreographic and sound dimensions. Laura Huertas Millán’s Mirages, part of her film series “Ethnographic Fictions,” is a four-channel video installation built around the multiple uses and identities of the coca leaf in the Colombian Amazon. Rubén D´Hers’ sound installation, Faint Music, examines the duality of music and noise in sounds produced by domestic or household devices; while Daniela Serna Gallego’s installation, Periphrasis, uses the mechanism of flip clocks to deconstruct and reconfigure a series of words and signs to reflect on how the text-time relationship is experienced in the world today.

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About the CIFO Grants & Commissions Program

The CIFO Grants & Commissions Program offers emerging, mid-career and established contemporary Latin American artists the opportunity to develop and present new work to international audiences. To date CIFO has awarded more than 120 artists and dedicated over $1.5 million in funds through the program. Each year, artists are nominated by CIFO’s Honorary Advisory Committee, which is comprised of leading art professionals, curators and artists from Latin America, the United States and Europe. After a rigorous review process, the winners are chosen by the Selection Committee and ratified by the CIFO Board of Directors. The program has been known to springboard its recipients to the next level of their careers.

About CIFO

Ella Fontanals-Cisneros established the non-profit Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in 2002. The foundation’s mission is to support and foster cultural understanding and educational dialog among Latin American artists and global audiences. CIFO serves as a platform for emerging, mid-career and established Latin American artists through the Grants & Commissions Program, the CIFO Collection, and other related art and cultural projects in the United States of America and internationally.

For more information about CIFO exhibitions, and other programs, please visit cifo.org and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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