At the end of two years of being suspended by economic problems, the celebrated Salon - created in 1943 - re-opened as a Biennial on October 29th 2006 and will remain exhibiting until March 31st 2007. From a concurrence of 513 works, the jury selected just 71 with which it secured a high quantity and representation of what the country does. To these 71 artists were added the special guests from Panama: Daniel Solís, Fernando Toledo, Amalia Tapia, Ignacio Espia, Lezli Milson and Miki Fabregas, selected by Mónica Kupfer, a recognized scholar of Central American art and organizer of the Panama Biennial. The exhibition covers the seven rooms of the Athenaeum, made available by the museographer Martin Sanchez, who also participated in the selection jury. The rest of the qualification jury was formed of the critics Federica Palomero (curator of the Bank of Venezuela collection) and Juan Carlos López (curator of the Gallery of National Art), and the artists Nan González (Arturo Michelena Prize 2001) and Julio Pacheco Rivas (Arturo Michelena Prize1976). A woman performing karate with a geisha mask took the top prize (25 million Bolivars) in the LXIII Arturo Michelena Salon of the Athenaeum of Valencia, Venezuela. The wining work Essence by the video-artist Maria Cristina Carbonell, attracted the attention of the jury for the combination of artistic languages (theatre, music, comics, painting, martial arts and video). The qualification phase involved the intervention of the director of the Museum of Puerto Rico Lourdes Ramos, with what the Biennial confirmed to be the international range with which it reopens. Besides Maria Cristina Carbonell, the following Venezuelan artists were distinguished: Claudia Bueno (Andrés Pérez Mujica Prize, 15 million), Clemencia Labín (Braulio Salazar Prize, 10 million), Luis Villamizar (Antonio Edmundo Monsanto Prize, 8 million), Raymond Romero (Armando Reverón Prize, 6 million) and José Vivenes (Eladio Alemán Sucre Prize, 4 million). For the time that the exhibition is open, the Athenaeum of Valencia has organized two cycles of conferences under the coordination of the critic Ricardo Alfredo Toledo, on the theme ¿Art, madness and creation¿ and ¿The dissidents and their renovatory esthetic in Venezuelan art¿. There are also workshops on ¿New languages in contemporary art¿. These activities will be held in various institutions.