FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE CISNEROS FONTANALS ART FOUNDATION (CIFO) ANNOUNCES RECIPIENTS OF THE

2019 CIFO GRANTS & COMMISSIONS PROGRAM AWARD

EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO TO HOST 2019 GRANTS & COMMISSIONS EXHIBITION

Acclaimed Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña receives Achievement Award

Photo: Left to right first row: Emerging Artist - Oscar Abraham Pabón (Venezuela); Emerging Artist - María José Machado (Ecuador); Emerging Artist- Susana Pilar Delahante (Cuba).

Left to right second row: Mid-Career Artists -Leyla Cárdenas (Colombia); Achievement Artist - Cecilia Vicuña (Chile); Mid-Career Artist Yucef Merhi (Venezuela) 

Left to right third row: Mid-Career Artist Nicolás Paris (Colombia); Mid-Career Artist Anna Linnemann (Brazil); Emerging Artist Claudia Martínez Garay (Peru).

Miami, Florida (December 6, 2018) — The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2019 CIFO Grants & Commissions Program Award. The accompanying exhibition of new works by the awarded artists will be held at El Museo del Barrio in New York City, in the fall of 2019. The 2019 Grants & Commissions Program Award recognizes nine (9) Latin American artists representing seven (7) countries, across three (3) categories: The Achievement Award recipient, Cecilia Vicuña (Chile); Mid-Career Artists—Leyla Cárdenas (Colombia), Ana Linnemann (Brazil), Yucef Mehri (Venezuela) and Nicolas Paris (Colombia); and Emerging Artists— Susana Pilar Delahante (Cuba), Claudia Martínez Garay (Peru), María José Machado (Ecuador), and Oscar Abraham Pabón (Venezuela).

The annual Grants & Commissions Program, now in its 17th iteration and CIFO’s signature initiative, is an embodiment of the foundation’s mission to foster, support, and exhibit innovative work by Latin American artists. Nominated by an esteemed group of curators, the awarded artists exemplify the breadth and depth of contemporary art production throughout Latin America, engaging with diverse contemporary themes across media including video, performance, multimedia installation, sculpture, and found material, among others.

Since 2018, the accompanying Grants & Commissions exhibitions have been presented at international partnering institutions. The fall 2019 Grants & Commissions exhibition at El Museo del Barrio will mark the program’s debut exhibition in New York City. Further details on the upcoming exhibition will be announced at a later date.

“For El Museo del Barrio, generating strategic alliances with new cultural platforms is essential,” said Patrick Charpenel, Executive Director of El Museo del Barrio. “This is the reason why we are now embarking on a collaborative project with CIFO, always intending to recognize the outstanding work by emerging artists from the Latino and Latin American communities. Today more than ever we have the responsibility to promote vigorously the complex perspective of our artists.”

“CIFO is thrilled to be partnering with El Museo del Barrio for the next edition of the Grants & Commissions program,” said Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, CIFO’s Founder and Honorary President. “This upcoming exhibition will be a major event, and we are looking forward to seeing the work of these emerging, mid-career and established artists come to life in New York City.”

The 2019 CIFO Grants & Commissions Program Award recipients are as follows:

Grants & Commissions: Achievement Award

Cecilia Vicuña (Chile) has embraced the concept of the quipu, a tactile and spatial metaphor for the interconnection of the body and the cosmos. “[The awarded project] is the culmination of my life’s work. It is a monumental collective art action from the heart center of indigenous poetics, calling attention to the destruction of the glaciers”.

Nominated by: Liz Munsell (USA).

Grants & Commissions: Mid-Career Artists

Leyla Cárdenas (Colombia) presents a video-installation in which she unravels the weft of the projection screen leaving the warp as a stratigraphic metaphor of the ghostly connotation of both architectural vestiges and natural geology.

Nominated by: Jesús Fuenmayor (Venezuela).

Ana Linnemann (Brazil) establishes circuits with an ongoing series of works to build up her project, a conducting wooden structure, in which artistic labor-related objects and tools, are brought into life by electrical connections.

Nominated by: Jesús Fuenmayor (Venezuela)

Yucef Mehri (Venezuela) work addresses social, political, and philosophical issues in the contemporary world. His project presents an immersive installation comprised by official reports, testimonies, and leaked data from the No Fly list, a list created and maintained by the United States federal government's Terrorist Screening Center (TSC).

Nominated by: Rodolfo Kronfle (Ecuador)

Nicolás Paris (Colombia) presents a modular and changing installation attached to the architectural space that examines the classroom as an idea and engages the active role of the public.

Nominated by: Oscar Muñoz (Colombia).

Grants & Commissions: Emerging Artists

Susana Pilar Delahante (Cuba) presents a performance that explores the footprint of the African diaspora in the Caribbean through her own family history.

Nominated by: René Francisco Rodríguez (Cuba)

Claudia Martínez Garay (Peru) creates a graphic installation, a mix of diverse images evoking oppression and insurrection, dictatorship and rebellion, in Latin American history.

Nominated by: Jesús Fuenmayor (Venezuela) and Gustavo Buntinx (Peru).

María José Machado (Ecuador) puts her fingers on the sore spots of society by approaching life in prison populations through a relational type of work, workshops and photographic documentation around the embodiment of freedom allegories.

Nominated by: Jesús Fuenmayor (Venezuela)

Oscar Abraham Pabón (Venezuela) presents an interactive intervention of a grand piano using recycled materials to create a precarious sounding board similar to an informal house.

Nominated by: Raquel Schwartz (Bolivia) and Kaira Cabañas (U.S.A).

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About El Museo del Barrio

El Museo del Barrio, founded by a coalition of Puerto Rican educators, artists, and activists, is the nation’s leading Latino and Latin American cultural institution. The Museum welcomes visitors of all backgrounds to discover the artistic landscape of these communities through its extensive Permanent Collection, varied exhibitions and publications, bilingual public programs, educational activities, festivals, and special events. The Museum is located at 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street in New York City, and open Wednesday to Saturday from 11:00 am – 6:00 pm, and Sunday from 12:00 to 5:00 pm. Admission is suggested. For more information, please visit www.elmuseo.org.

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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