The 10th Mercosur Biennial is in the midst of a deep crisis; the message for this year, Messages of a New America, has instead revealed a profound disconnect. On the one hand, the curatorial team has seen three of its members, Raphael Fonseca (Brazil), Ramón Castillo Inostroza (Chile), and Fernando Davis (Argentina), resign as a group after the event's official launch, when the Mercosur Biennial Foundation made the unilateral decision to reduce the number of works and artists without consulting the curators, who for months had carried out a painstaking selection process. According to the Artishock web portal, which had access to the three curator's resignation letters, Ramón Castillo wrote in his that "less than fifteen days before inauguration, there is no official communication from the Biennial explaining the final list of participating artists, the location of the spaces in the Biennial, or the final exhibition design, which affects the exhibition protocols, conservation requirements, and security in each case. In a letter sent us by the Biennial foundation on September 21st, via chief curator Gaudêncio Fidelis and adjunct curator Márcio Tavares, we were informed in broad terms that there was financing for the transport of works from certain countries but not others, and that the latter were now out of the biennial. This meant a redesign of the exhibition, which has yet to be discussed by the curatorial team. This decision, argued as a financial matter, is a grave injury to my curatorial research work, organized since several months prior, and at no time was there any forewarning of possible problems, which would have allowed us to modify the plan or seek funds from countries intent on having a representation at the biennial. That e-mail revealed not only an economic problem, but a lack of communication and of respect for the professionalism of the assistant curators, since no information was coming forth from the curatorial team and there was no platform for working in a collaborative work, dialog, be informed, and negotiate. In other words, to suppress the work of the assistant curators in such an improvised manner means, without a doubt, to redefine the meaning of the Biennial, leaving out of the current version the debates and curatorial notions formulated so far". In the Biennial's first official communication after the resignation of the curators, José Antonio Fernandes Martins, president of the Fundação Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul, stated that "Due to several factors, we were forced to leave out a number of artworks previously included in the program for the 10th Biennial. We decided to make adjustments to the project and give visibility to its execution because we are convinced that guaranteeing the 10th edition of the Biennial in a context of economic recession, when so many events are being cancelled outright in the State and the Country, proves our respect for the community, artists, investors, and partners". The foundation has decided to keep in the Biennial's program only those works that are physically in Brazil, those whose transport and handling from their country of origin is covered by a sponsor, and those created specifically for the Biennial (or whose material characteristics—photography and video, for instance—permit the creation of exhibition copies). This decision leaves many artists from Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela, among other countries. Some participating artists have already spoken out against this situation. In his Facebook page, Colombian artist Nadín Ospina wrote that "this decision seriously impacts not only the Biennial's curatorial script and the research carried out by the curators for more than a year, but also the professional integrity of artists who...