The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation Awards Grants & Commissions 2013
The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) is proud to announce Deferred Archive as this year's Grants & Commissions Program exhibition. As it is customary, the winners are part of the annual exhibition dedicated to the program at the CIFO Art Space.
This year's exhibition will open to the public to October 27th.
The tenth edition of CIFO's Grants & Commissions Program features newly commissioned works by Jorge Mendez Blake (Mexico), Milena Bonilla (Colombia), Miguel Calderon (Mexico), Antonio Caro (Colombia), Benvenuto Chavajay (Guatemala), José Gabriel Fernandez (Venezuela), Sofia Olascoaga (Mexico), Manuela Ribadeneira (Ecuador), Laureana Toledo (Mexico) and Santiago Villanueva (Argentina).
Deferred Archive refers to the idea that memory is constructed retrospectively – not from past to future, but from future to past, so that the events that we experience are not fixed in time, but fleeting from one subject to the other.
The idea of the deferred archive represents the artist looking back, activating past events and classifying them in order to understand a particular moment, as if revisiting the event with the perspective of today gives it the opportunity to really exist; a type of documentation that allows for memory to be created within the now – or, memory according to a later experience. The artist uses this model as a way of recognizing that memory is always something in the making. By looking to the past, the artists participating in CIFO's 2013 Grants & Commissions Program are not searching for a memory, but rather creating a memory through documentation/archiving. The act of post-event documentation (or belated documentation) therefore becomes the deferred archive.
"CIFO remains committed to maintaining investment and supporting contemporary artists from Latin America," said CIFO Founder Ella Fontanals-Cisneros. "In the tenth edition of the Grants & Commissions Program, we are very proud to honor this year's award recipients who are creating some of the most challenging and innovative work today. These awards serve as a testament to the artists' skill, creativity and vision."
This year, CIFO has partnered with Cannonball, an Artist Residency based in Downtown Miami, to award one of the artists in the Grants & Commissions Program with a two month residency. CIFO's Board of Directors selected Benvenuto Chavajay from Guatemala for the residency where he will spend the months leading up to the exhibition focusing on creating his project.
