Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, founder and president of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), has announced the appointment of Eugenio Valdés-Figueroa as the new director and curator of the foundation. Valdés-Figueroa most recently served as art and educational director of Casa Daros, Daros-Latinamerica in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At CIFO, Valdés-Figueroa replaces Jesús Fuenmayor, who had occupied the post since 2012. Born in Cuba, Valdés-Figueroa has been a leader in the Latin American art academic and curatorial fields for over twenty-five years. Before joining Daros-Latinamerica in 2001, he worked as a researcher of contemporary African art and curator of international contemporary art at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam in Havana, Cuba, where he co-curated the Havana Biennial between 1990 and 1997. During the nineties, he also collaborated as co-curator and lecturer at several international biennials including Dakar, Tirana, Istanbul, Johannesburg and FotoFest Houston. Valdés-Figueroa began his career as a professor at the Universidad de La Habana in Cuba. According to Ms. Fontanal-Cisneros, "Looking ahead into the future of CIFO, Valdés-Figueroa's deep well of knowledge in the field of Latin American contemporary art and his pioneering vision make him an ideal person to lead the foundation. His long-standing relationships with artists across the region, a professional trajectory that includes the mounting of unforgettable exhibitions, and his global perspective will allow us to create exhibitions that continue to raise the profile of Latin American artists worldwide," said Ms. Fontanals-Cisneros. "We are thrilled that Eugenio will join and lead our team as CIFO expands its exhibition program both regionally at the CIFO Art Space in Miami, in the US, and internationally." "To this day CIFO has been a project committed to promoting a consistent assessment of the Latin American art of recent decades and projecting it internationally. At the same time, the foundation has continuously supported innovative contemporary art proposals in this region," said Eugenio Valdés. "I feel a great affinity with CIFO's mission and am thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to the research initiatives of such an important collection. I'm looking forward to working with CIFO to elevate the profile of Latin American art internationally and to continue to provide a dynamic platform for artists and their work." As an independent curator, Valdés-Figueroa co-curated a number of exhibitions including "Utopian Territories" (organized by CAG and Morris & Helen Belkin Gallery-UBC, Vancouver, Canada, 1997), "The Direction of the Gaze" (Stadthaus, Zürich, Switzerland; Musée de Beaux Arts, La Chaux-des-Fonds, Switzerland, 1998), and "Cuba: Maps of Desires" (Kunsthalle Wien, Austria; Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria; NIKOLAJ Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Denmark, 1999), among many others. As a member of the international art collective RAIN, he co-curated the exhibitions "4D: Four Dimensions, Four Decades" (Havana Biennial, Cuba, 2003); Hallway (MAK, Vienna, 2001); Super-Mover (FotoFest, Houston, 2002); This Is My House (Schindler House-MAK Center, Los Angeles, 2001). He is also a frequent contributor to magazines, books, and catalogs on contemporary art. He has collaborated in the edition of several publications on Latin American art, including Cantos Cuentos Colombianos y Cantos Contos Colombia Nos – Encontros (Cobogó-Daros Latinamerica, 2013), Para Saber Escutar (Casa Daros, 2013), Cuvan Pavillion: 4D: Four Dimensions, Four Decades (Ed. b-book, 2008), Guerra y Pá (Daros Latinamerica, 2004-2005). His essays have been included in Art Cuba: The...