CIFO Art Space PRESENTS Three Perspectives: CIFO 2007 Commissions Program Artists
ON VIEW MARCH 17-MAY 6, 2007
Exhibition in downtown Miami features new work by three artists from Latin America selected through CIFOs 2007 Commissions Program
This spring, the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) will present 3 Perspectives: CIFO 2007 Commissions Program Artists showcasing newly-commissioned work by the three artists from Latin America selected through CIFOs 2007 Commission Program: conceptual artist & painter Eugenio Espinoza (Venezuela); painter Alvaro Oyarzún (Chile); and video artist José Alejandro Restrepo (Colombia).
The exhibition, featuring new work by each artist alongside selections of their previous work, will be on view from March 17 to May 6, 2007 at the CIFO Art Space at 1018 North Miami Avenue. The exhibition is curated in house by Cecilia Fajardo-Hill CIFOs Chief curator and Laura Lavernia, CIFOs assistant curator. Three curators have been invited to lead public talks with the artists and to write essays on the artists: Cuauhtemoc Medina (Mexico) on Restrepo, Cecilia Brunson (Chile) on Oyarzún, and Ruth Auerbach (Venezuela) on Espinoza.
A bilingual illustrated catalog for 3 Perspectives will be published. The catalogue will be launched at a special event prior to the close of the exhibition.
CIFOs goal is to broaden global understanding of the work of artists who are making a significant impact in Latin America but are less familiar to U.S. audiences, said CIFO Director and Chief Curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill. The Commissions Program gives these artists a forum to develop and present new work, and provides residents and visitors to Miami with the rare opportunity to learn about their important contributions to contemporary art.
CIFO established the program in 2006 to support and share the work of mid-career visual artists from Latin America who are exploring new directions in contemporary art. Submissions are reviewed by an international panel of leading artists, curators and art professionals, and two to four artists are selected each year to receive funding for a new project and an exhibition at CIFO. CIFO launched the Commissions program last May with the presentation of Savage Modern/Moderno Salvaje by Alexander Apóstol (Venezuela) and Surfaces/Superficies by Magdalena Fernández (Venezuela).
Miami-based Venezuelan artist Eugenio Espinoza is the recipient of the 2007 CIFO Achievement Commission, a special honor recognizing the significant contributions of an artist from Latin America that have an extensive career track by providing them with broader exposure. The Achievement Commission is especially significant, as it offers an international platform for artists with an important trajectoryan exchange that enriches both artist and audience alike, noted Fajardo-Hill.
Espinoza will present a series of painted canvaseseach using the grid structure that has become a signature element of his workcreating mounted structures that oscillate between sculpture, installation and painting. This series is a response to Espinozas 30-year conceptual oeuvre that has expanded and challenged the rigidity of the modernist grid, while also using it as artistic language. The canvases will be presented alongside historic photographs, artist sketchbooks and a new installation, Negativa Moderna, a direct response to his 1972 work, Impenetrable–an installation of a grid on canvas covering the floor of the exhibition space thereby denying public access.
Installation artist Alvaro Oyarzún of Chile will present a new project entitled, La imagen pintada o los más bellos recuerdos de la vida del Capitán Zanahoria (The Painted Image or the Most Beautiful Memories of the Life of Captain Carrot). This large-scale piece, encompassing an entire gallery wall, is composed of some 500 small-scale drawings, paintings and photographs. Oyarzún refers to his work as a visual montage of various intertwined stories where the charactersamorphous archetypes of artistscarry out one plot. In The Painted Image, these characters question the existence of art and the relationship between art and the artist. The piece also explores the relationship between painting and the contemporary image through photographic documentation and the multiplicity (and inherent irony) of Oyarzúns humorous drawings as both didactic and illustrative tools.
José Alejandro Restrepo, considered one of the pioneer video artists in his native Colombia, will produce the newly-commissioned video installation Protomárties, a contemporary interpretation of the santoral, or calendar of the lives of saints. Restrepo will present Protomárties along with a selection of worksa video/sculpture and three video piecesall which, through the use of new media, re-contextualize religious iconography and myth. The dramatic, baroque visual expressions of Christianity in Latin America are a key influence in Restrepos work, offering a rich laboratory from which to develop a repertoire of figures and bodies that can be re-interpreted within a contemporary context.
Special Events – Conversations with Curators
Eugenio Espinoza and curator Ruth Auerbach (Venezuela)
Saturday, March 17 at 11 a.m.
Alvaro Oyarzún and curator Cecilia Brunson (Chile)
Sunday, March 18 at 11 a.m.
José Alejandro Restrepo and curator Cuauhtémoc Medina (Mexico)
Monday, March 19 at 7 p.m.
All talks will be held at CIFO Art Space at 1018 North Miami Avenue and are free to the public.
About CIFO
CIFO, the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, is a non-profit organization, established in 2002 by Ella Fontanals-Cisneros and her family to foster cultural and educational exchange within the visual arts. CIFO has three primary initiatives: CIFO Art Space a permanent venue for the presentation of engaging and provocative contemporary art exhibitions highlighting works from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, works by its grantees and commissioned artists and experimental, challenging art programs; Grants and Commissions Programs supporting emerging and mid-career contemporary multi-disciplinary artists from Latin America; and offering support to other cultural endeavors through partnerships and funding.
Location: 1018 North Miami Avenue, downtown Miami Hours: Thursday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. Public information: Available online at www.cifo.org or by calling 305.455.3380. Tours: To schedule an appointment or tour (for groups of 5 or more), call 305.455.3385.
Media in Miami contact:
Andrea Navarro, Communications Coordinator
Email: anavarro@cifo.org; 305.455.3337
National and international media contact:
Resnicow Schroeder Associates
Lily Mitchem, 212.671.5163; lmitchem@resnicowschroeder.com
Laura Bradley Davis, 415.513.3852; ldavis@resnicowschroeder.com
Para informacio_n en Espanol:
Andrea Navarro, Communications Coordinator
Email: anavarro@cifo.org; 305.455.3337
Bios of the artists are provided below. High-definition photos are available upon request.
Eugenio Espinoza
Born in San Juan de los Morros, Venezuela in 1950, Espinoza studied at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Cristóbal Rojas (EAPCC) in Caracas and later at Pratt Institute in New York and New York University. Espinoza is regarded as one of the first conceptual artists in Venezuela and also one of the most influential artists of his generation. Over the course of thirty years, Espinoza has developed an oeuvre investigating the paradigms and concepts of geometric abstraction.
At 22, Espinoza was given his first solo exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas where he exhibited 20 Obras (20 works)his conceptual investigation of the modernist grid. That same year, 1972, at the Ateneo de Caracas, he presented El Impenetrable (The Impenetrable), an installation made of reticulated fabric covering the floor, which restricted the viewer from entering the exhibition space — a parody of the Penetrables created by artist Jesus Soto. Among some of his most important solo exhibitions are: Tequeños at the Museo de la Estampa y Diseño Carlos Cruz-Diez, Caracas, Venezuela (2004); Linea Blanca at the Museo de Artes Visuales Alejandro Otero (1995); Orla at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofia Imber, Caracas (1992); and Karakana at the Museo de Arte La Rinconada, Caracas, Venezuela (1985). Espinoza has also participated in group exhibitions such as: Jump Cuts: Venezuelan Contemporary Art from the Mercantil Collection at the Americas Society in New York (2005); Geo-metrías: Abstracción Geométrica en la Colección Cisneros at Malba in Buenos Aires and the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo, Uruguay (2003); Utopolis at the Galería de Arte Nacional in Caracas, Venezuela (2000), among others. His work has also been included in various anthologies on contemporary art from Latin America and is in various museum collections such as, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas; Museo de Are Contemporáneo Sofia Imber, and the Fundación GEGO, as well as many private collections. Espinoza has also taught at EAPCC in Venezuela and has worked as an art critic. He currently lives and works in Miami.
Alvaro Oyarzún
Self-taught, since 1987 Chilean artist Alvaro Oyarzún has engaged in the creation of large-scale, mixed media work he calls paintings, each comprised of numerous accumulated small drawings, paintings, and photographs he creates that encompass the gallery wall. Composed of intertwined, sometimes fictional, stories, humoristic drawings and illustrations taken from a variety of sources, Oyarzúns work explores art historical topics and the complex role, and life, of the artist.
Oyarzúns work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions such as: Perdimos la Patria pero Ganamos un Lugar en la Foto, with the Group El Piano de Ramon Carnicer, Galeria Bucci, Santiago (1987); Fragilidad de Zona, Instituto Cultural de las Condes, Santiago (1990); Collectio Organum Transplante, Galeria Animal, Santiago (2001); Cambio de Aceite, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Chile (2003); El Autodidacta, Galeria Animal, Santiago (2003); and Marking Time at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas (2005). He is the recipient of the Fondart Grant in Chile (2004, 2002, and 2001). He lives and works in Santiago, Chile.
José Alejandro Restrepo
José Alejandro Restrepo was born in 1959 in Bogotá, Colombia. He studied at the Universidad Nacional (Bogotá) and at the Ecóle des Beaux Arts in Paris. Considered one of the pioneer video artists in his native Colombia, Restrepos work explores the complex socio-political situations present Colombia, and Latin America, through a revision of colonial heritage and scientific exploration; and an analysis of religion, myth and iconographies. Restrepos video installations are characterized by the exploration of a central theme through a complex interrelation of these various avenues.
Restrepos work has been the subject of various solo exhibitions such as: TransHistorias: Mito y Memoria en la Obra de José Alejandro Restrepo, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogota (2001); Musa Paradisíaca, Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá (1997); Anaconda, Aphone in Geneva, Switzerland (1993); and Terebra at the Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Bogotá one of the first video installations made in Colombia (1988). Among the various group exhibitions is work has been featured in are: Arte y Violencia en Colombia, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota (1999); The Sense of Place, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (1998); Tempo at the Museum of Modern Art Queens, New York (2002); Botánica Poltica, Santa Montcada, Fundación la Caixa in Barcelona (2004) and Cantos/Cuentos Colombianos: Contemporary Colombian Art at the Daros-Latinamerica, Zurich (2004). He has participated in several international art events, such as The Havana Biennial (1994, 2000), Sao Paulo Biennial (1996) and the Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador, where his work received the biennial award. Recently, Restrepo has been invited to participate in the Art Exhibition at the International Venice Biennale, slated for June 10 November 21, 2007. He lives and works in Botogá, Colombia.
