The Luis Caballero Award was created in 1996 by Jorge Jaramillo from the Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo (IDCT) and is now organized by the Instituto Distrital de las Artes (IDARTES) through the Gerencia de Artes Plásticas y Visuales. Structurally similar to a biennial, the event invites artists over the age of 35 to submit site-specific intervention or installation projects. The award takes place in two phases: Nomination and Awards The 2015 edition was inaugurated on September 29 with 8 site-specific intervention projects by the nominated artists: Alberto Baraya (Casa Museo Quinta de Bolivar), Ana Isabel Diez (Museo Santa Clara), Lina Espinosa (Flora ars+natura), Juan Fernando Herrán (Monumento a los Héroes), Benjamín Jacanamijoy (outdoor lighting system at the Torre Colpatria), Juan Fernando Mejía (Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogota, MAMBO), Ana María Millán (Archivo de Bogotá), and Ana María Rueda (Centro de Memoria, Paz y Reconciliación). During the award phase, jurors José Luis Falconi, Fernando Uhía and Víictor Manuel Rodríguez gave the $35 million prize to Juan Mejía for his work titled Hacia un lugar común (Towards a Common Place). Based on the image of the wreck—recurrent in art history for his allegorical effectiveness—the work Hacia un lugar común requires no prior knowledge to be assimilated and documents a current and concrete reality with strong overtones of tragedy and feelings of failure capable of generating an almost natural fascination. Also recurrent in art and contemporary culture, the notion of failure, which lies beneath the entire cultural "program" of postmodernism and even the human condition of the contemporary, is addressed in this project with a touch of irony. The project is a metaphor of time (past, present and future) assimilated at the personal, cultural, institutional and historical levels. Juan Mejia is a visual artist with a Master's degree in History and Theory of Art and Architecture. He has shown his work individually and collectively since 1995 in regional and national salons, as well as in galleries, museums and spaces in Colombia and abroad. His visual work revolves around creating allegorical images that allude to the processes of artistic training and education in general, with recurrent references to childhood, adolescence, the educational environment, as well as autobiographical elements materialized in various media such as drawing, installation, publications and performances. His works are characterized for showing some instability in its component parts and for combining elements from the so called high culture and popular culture through media, literature, art, music and film. He has worked in collaboration with Maria Margarita Jiménez, Giovanni Vargas and Wilson Díaz (with whom he participated in the First Festival of Performance in Cali). The 8th Luis Caballero Award provides tours through two concurrent circuits with eight 8 spaces in which to visit the nominated projects. More information available at:
formacionartesplasticas@idartes.gov.co www.galeriasantafe.gov.co Tel: 3795750 ext.: 3351 Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.