2019 Grants and Commissions Winners Announced Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO)

On December 6 of 2018, the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) announced the recipients of the 2019 CIFO Grants and Commissions Award Program. This recognition by the Miami-based foundation recognizes nine Latin American artists representing seven countries, across three categories. The Achievement Award went to Cecilia Vicuña (Chile); the Mid-Career Award was granted to Leyla Cárdenas (Colombia), Ana Linnemann (Brazil), Yucef Mehri (Venezuela), and Nicolás Paris (Colombia); and the recipients of the Emerging Artist Award were Susana Pilar Delahante (Cuba), Claudia Martínez-Garay (Peru), María José Machado (Ecuador), and Oscar Abraham-Pabón (Venezuela). Since 2018, the accompanying grants and commissions exhibitions have been presented at international partnering institutions. The exhibition with works by the awarded artists will be held at El Museo del Barrio in New York City, during the fall of 2019. The show will mark the first time an exhibition from this program is organized in New York. Further detail on the exhibition will be announced at a later date. "For El Museo del Barrio, the creation of strategic alliances with new cultural platforms is of the essence," said Patrick Charpenel, Executive Director of El Museo del Barrio. "This is why we are now embarking on a collaborative project with CIFO, always with the intention of recognizing the outstanding work by emerging artists from the Latino and Latin American communities. Today more than ever, we have the responsibility of vigorously promoting the complex perspective of our artists."