The Faena Group announced the call for participation in its new Faena Award. The call is open to individual artists and collectives from around the world, who create art by relying on several artistic disciplines—installation, sculpture, painting, etc.—technology, and design; and who, consequently, strive to redefine the canonical boundaries that have perhaps inhibited certain artistic projects in the past. Candidates must submit their applications no later than July 6 of this year. The results will be announced on the 12 of the same month. The winning artist or collective will receive a purse of $25,000.00 USD, plus up to $50,000.00 USD to finance the creation of a site-specific project. The completed work will be exhibited during the month of March, 2013, at the Molinos exhibition hall of the Faena Arts Center. According to of the event organizers, the site-specific aspect of the work is of the outmost importance, as it speaks of the artist(s) desire "to establish a dialog, not solely with the monumental architecture of the ancient mill that houses the center, but also with the cultural and urban conditions that shape our immediate context." Additionally, two Special Mentions will be awarded, each with a purse of $500.00 USD.
The members of the jury of the Faena Award include prominent international personalities of the art world like Carlos Basualdo, curator of contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Art and Design at the Universitá IVAV in Venice, Italy; Caroline Burgeois, curator of exhibitions at the François Pinault Foundation, in Switzerland; and Inés Katzenstein, founding director of the art department at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, in Argentina. The jury panel is coordinated by Ximena Caminos, Managing Director at Faena Arts Center.
More information about the Award is available at:
http://www.faenaartscenter.org/page/bases-y-condiciones.
To apply visit: http://www.faenaartscenter.org/premiosf.
About the Faena Arts District:
With the slow but certain consolidation of a contemporary art movement in Latin America, the Faena Group built in Buenos Aires what is today known as the Faena Arts District. This "district" aims at influencing and stimulating the positive way of life of the people of Buenos Aires and its visitors, by respecting the past of the space, but also by molding it to the artistic discourses of the present and preparing it for the changes of the future. The Faena Arts District focuses on the promotion of multidisciplinary artistic projects, through the offering of scholarships, commissions, and awards at the national and international level. The Arts Center represents the artistic section of the district. The Center is divided into five parts: The Daena Hotel + Universe, La Porteña 1 and 2; Los Molinos Building, and El Aleph, the first project in Latin America by the renowned Foster and Partners Studio. Located at the old machine room of an emblematic mill built at the turn of the Twentieth Century, and carefully revamped, as it kept the original height and the details from the period it was built in; its original large windows and half point arches. The artist or collective that best interacts with the space and underscore its historic qualities—within the contemporary context—will win the Faena Award.