Faena Art, the international nonprofit organization led by Ximena Caminos, today launched the open call for the 2016-2017 Faena Prize for the Arts. A biennial international juried prize, the Faena Prize for the Arts recognizes artistic experimentation, encourages post-disciplinary and temporal exploration, and promotes inquiry of the infinite links among art, technology and design.
Under the coordination of Ms. Caminos, the 2016 selection jury will include: Carlos Basualdo, Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Achim Borchardt-Hume, Director of Exhibitions at the Tate Modern; Caroline Bourgeois, curator of the François Pinault Foundation; independent curator Jesús Fuenmayor; and Victoria Noorthoorn, Director of Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires.
This year’s edition of the Faena Prize for the Arts calls on artists or groups of artists from all over the world to develop proposals for original projects that engage with the concept of time and duration while also interacting with the monumental architecture of the Faena Art Center in a significant way.
The open call aims to summon multidisciplinary artists from across the world to imagine site-sensitive works that rethink performance practices, are in dialogue with the physical and symbolic space of the Faena Art Center while engaging with the cultural and urban conditions of the city of Buenos Aires.
Considered one of the most prestigious art prizes in the Americas, Faena Prize winners are awarded a total of $75,000; $25,000 of which is allocated to the artist in unrestricted funds with a $50,000 budget for production to realize their proposal. The resulting work will be exhibited at the Faena Art Center Buenos Aires with the possibility of being adapted for Faena Forum in Miami Beach. Two special mentions will also be awarded, each with a $1,000 prize.
“We conceived the Faena Prize for the Arts as a way to foster a more radical approach to art production,”
says Ms. Caminos.
“By giving artists the opportunity to realize their most ambitious dreams, in terms of both scale and audacity, we are encouraging experimentation and the creation of new work that investigates and engages with the concept of time as a point of departure. Prize winners are free to do something they could not do in a traditional setting and to create new and challenging work that maintains the Faena Art mission of encouraging time-based and post disciplinary creative practices.”
Previous Faena Prize winners are Cayetano Ferrer (2015), Fundación Vairoletto (2013), Martín Sastre (2012). Special mention awards have been granted to Nicolas Gullota (2015), Pablo Rasgado (2015), Santiago Sierra (2013), Sebastián Díaz Morales (2013), and Wilfredo Prieto (2012).
Project proposals should be submitted online at www.faenaart.org/faenaprize by August 10, 2016. Winning proposals will be produced for exhibition at Faena Art Center Buenos Aires in 2017.
ELIGIBILITY
Artists, both individuals and collectives, 18 years old and above are eligible to apply. Proposals will be accepted from emerging, mid career and established artists and cultural practitioners across disciplines. Individual artists who are also members of a collective that submit an entry for review may also present their own individual project.
Project proposals should be submitted online before August 10, 2016. Submissions may include interdisciplinary projects, installations, performances, paintings, sculptures, photographs, film or video, and work in design or architecture that reflects on, responds to and/or occupies the Faena Art Center in a profound and impactful way.
REVIEW PROCESS
While maintaining the open call, this year’s Prize will feature a Nominating Committee that will include curators and museum directors from around the world. These nominations will be anonymous and will be reviewed by the Faena Prize jury along with all open call submissions.
The Nominating Committee will include: Abdellah Karroum, Director Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar; Fernanda Brenner, Artistic Director PIVÔ, São Paulo; Jessica Morgan, Director Dia Art Foundation, New York; Lucrecia Palacios, Curator Malba, Buenos Aires; Philippe Pirotte, Director Portikus and Biennale de Montréal; and Franklin Sirmans, Director Perez Art Museum Miami. The Nominating Committee will be coordinated by curator, Jesus Fuenmayor.
THE JURY
Carlos Basualdo is a member of Faena Circle and the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he oversees the Museum’s Department of Contemporary Art. He was the lead organizer of Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens that represented the United States at the 2007 Venice Biennale, where it was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. He was also part of the curatorial teams for Documenta11, the 50th Venice Biennale, and conceived and curated Tropicalia: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture, which traveled from the MCA Chicago to the Barbican Gallery in London (2004/2005) as well as the Bronx Museum in New York and the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro (2006/2007). From 2010 until 2013, he worked as Curator at Large at MAXXI Arte, in Rome, Italy.
Achim Borchardt-Hume is Director of Exhibitions at Tate Modern, where he joined as Head of Exhibitions in November 2012. His recent projects include Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture, the first major Malevich restropective in the UK and the Richard Tuttle Turbine Hall commission. He was previously Chief Curator of the Whitechapel Gallery, a Curator of Modern and Contemporary art at Tate Modern, Exhibition Organizer at the Serpentine Gallery, and Acting Head of the Barbican Art Gallery. German-born Borchardt-Hume holds a Ph.D in Art History and Theory from Essex University on art and politics in Fascist Italy.
Caroline Bourgeois is the curator of the François Pinault Foundation in Paris and has organized numerous exhibitions around the world, such as The Passage of Time in Lille, A Certain State of the World at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, À Triple Tour in Paris, Illusions des lumières and Martial Raysse at Palazzo Grassi, and Who is Afraid of Artists? in Dinard, France. Between 2004 and 2008, she served as Artistic Director of Le Plateau, the exhibition space of the Île-de-France Regional Contemporary Art Fund (FRAC).
Jesús Fuenmayor is a curator with more than twenty-five years of experience in the field. In 2015 he curated the exhibition Eugenio Espinoza: Unruly Supports at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, as well as Gego: Autobiography of a Line at the Dominique Lévy Gallery in New York. From 2012 to 2015 he was Director and Curator of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami. Prior to that, from 2004 to 2011, he served as Director of the Fundación Periférico Caracas, also curating exhibitions on contemporary artists including Antoni Muntadas, Meyer Vaisman, Arocha + Schraenen, Jorge Pedro Núñez, Montserrat Soto, Jaime Gili, and Danilo Dueñas. He has organized curatorial workshops and seminars and published extensively in international art magazines as well as museum catalogues and anthologies of contemporary art.
Victoria Noorthoorn is Director of the Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires. She was the Projects Coordinator of the International Program at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Assistant Curator of Contemporary Exhibitions at The Drawing Center, New York; and Curator of Malba-Fundación Costantini, Buenos Aires. Noorthoorn has worked as an independent curator in Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Sao Paulo, Galicia, New York, Cali, and Porto Alegre. She was the Curator of the 2011 Lyon Biennial; received an MA in Art History from the University of Buenos Aires, and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies in Bard College, New York.
ABOUT FAENA ART
Faena Art is the nonprofit organization that houses and produces post-disciplinary and time-based experiences. A catalyst for innovative, site-specific and immersive creative practices, Faena Art is a transformative bridge across the Americas, between the south and the north, the popular and the experimental. At the Faena Art Center Buenos Aires and at starting this fall at Faena Forum in Miami Beach, Faena Art fosters new models for performative social interaction that transcend the traditional boundaries of art, science, philosophy and social practice. Ximena Caminos chairs and leads FAENA ART.
ABOUT XIMENA CAMINOS
Ximena Caminos is Partner and Creative Director of Faena, Chair of Faena Art and Executive Director of Faena Forum Miami Beach and Faena Art Center Buenos Aires. Under her leadership, Faena has made art and culture the foundation of all its endeavors in order to successfully bridge culture, community-building and urban development. As one of the first independent curators in South America, Caminos rethought the role of the contemporary art exhibition through engagement with young, emerging artists. From 1998 to 2001 she was Artistic Consultant for the Buenos Aires Secretary of Culture and the Argentine State Department’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and from 2002 – 2004, Caminos was Curator at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA). In 2004, Caminos joined Faena Art to lead the development of Faena Art Center Buenos Aires, which has since garnered international acclaim as one of the leading contemporary art venues in Latin America.
ABOUT FAENA ART CENTER BUENOS AIRES
The Faena Art Center is a center for arts and artistic experimentation, created by Faena Art to present groundbreaking site-specific installations and offer both an international and innovative exhibition program to the city of Buenos Aires. Generating ideas and dialogue within the surrounding community, as well as across the Americas and with the international contemporary art world, the Faena Art Center is space for cross-cultural investigation and creation that supports the newest, most cutting-edge, and boldest forms of creativity.
Inaugurated in 2011, the Faena Art Center, under the guidance and overarching vision of Director, Ximena Caminos, has commissioned contemporary artists to envision and realize major site-specific works, such as: Auto Body (May, 2015); The Visitors by Ragnar Kjartansson (May, 2015), ángeles veloces arcanos fugaces by assume vivid astro focus (October 2014); Mendoza Walking by Richard Long (June 2014); Fyodor’s Performance Carousel by Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich (May 2014); The Liminal Space Trilogy by the Russian collective AES+F (May 2013, curated by Sonia Becce); Fundación Vairoletto by Franco Darío Vico (2013 Faena Prize winner); El Aleph by Anthony McCall and Mischa Kuball; Los Carpinteros by the Cuban collective of the same name (May 2012); Walking South by Franz Ackermann (November 2012); Los Paraísos Desplegables by Manuel Ameztoy and O bicho suspenso na paisagem by Ernesto Neto (September 2011, curated by Jessica Morgan). The Faena Art Center is generously supported in its mission by HSBC and CITROËN.
ABOUT FAENA FORUM
Faena Forum is a pioneering new building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Rem Koolhaas/OMA and the home of Faena Art in Miami. Faena Forum was envisioned by Alan Faena as the cultural heart of Faena District Miami Beach, which encompasses six blocks of new development designed by OMA, Foster + Partners, and Brandon Haw, and the renovation of historic buildings. Faena Forum will serve as an incubator for cultural expression as well as a place for convening and community building that will reshape the cultural landscape of Miami Beach.
The 43,000 square-foot building located at 33rd Street and Collins Avenue in Miami Beach is designed for ultimate flexibility. Two volumes, a cylinder and a cube that are similar in size, can be combined or subdivided to support the production of new projects, commissions, performances, exhibitions and events. The building has two main levels. The lobby amphitheater features pink marble floors and technical capabilities for surround projections. The upper floor assembly hall features a 40-foot-high dome with a central glazed oculus and a floor-to-ceiling panoramic window overlooking Indian Creek. A walkway that spirals up the interior wall of the Forum from street level to the top of the dome provides visitors with a range of perspectives on the space.
