MIAMI, FL.- The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University will feature the work of the five finalists for the 2007 Emilio S醤chez Award in the Visual Arts given by the Cintas Foundation in an exhibition opening on June 7, 2007 at 7:00pm. The exhibition will remain on view through September 16, 2007.

The finalists, in alphabetical order, are: Alexandre Arrechea, Mar韆 Mart韓ez-Ca馻s, Gean Moreno, Wilfredo Prieto and Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova. The exhibition was curated by Cintas Fellows Collection Manager Ingrid LaFleur Rogers. The Cintas Foundation board of directors will announce the winner during the public reception on June 7. The winner will receive $15,000.

Alexandre Arrechea graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana in 1994. He was a member of the artist collective Los Carpinteros for 12 years, until he left the group in July of 2003 to continue his career as a solo artist. Arrechea's work examines the boundaries between private and public spaces, thereby questioning the notion of a civilized society. The Cintas exhibition will feature his sculptural installation, Dust, where Arrechea has created four hand-blown glass punching bags to hold dust collected from his experience of living and working in various cities.

Mar韆 Mart韓ez-Ca馻s received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute in Chicago and is most celebrated for her photography. Her work explores how viewers interact with art by forcing them to mine through their own assumptions about her work. The Cintas exhibition will feature the first public presentation of her new photo-based series, Adaptation.

Gean Moreno is a graduate of Florida International University. In addition to his career as an artist, Moreno is a contributing writer on contemporary art for Art Paper, Flash Art and The New Art Examiner. In his artistic work, Moreno collects vibrant multi-textural objects derived from popular culture and pulls them together to create a visceral appearance. At the Cintas exhibition, he will show three suspended assemblages that are representative of his seminal works. Moreno is based in Miami.

Wilfredo Prieto was born in Sancti-Spiritus, Cuba, and attended the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana. He lives and works in Paris. Prieto is known for minimally distorting familiar spaces and images to alter their meaning. Most recently, he exhibited Apol韙ico, an installation of 60 national greyscale flags exploring identity in relation to national allegiance, for the Kadist Art Foundation at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The Cintas exhibition at the Frost Art Museum will feature Prieto's new work, Mute, a light installation that simulates a disco club without sound. It will be the first time the piece is shown in the United States.

Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova attended the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he was awarded the Frances Wolfson Endowed Visual Arts Scholarship. Rodriguez-Casanova creates large multi-media installations from everyday objects, such as furniture, gates and vertical blinds. By reconfiguring context and accessibility, he addresses themes of family lineage, immigration and the concept of home. For the Cintas exhibition, the artist has constructed a new work, titled Two Sectionals Creating Closure, which features two sectional couches in the form of a square that is inaccessible to the viewers. Rodriguez-Casanova lives in Miami and is working on a solo exhibition for the David Castillo Gallery.

The Cintas Foundation was established with funds from the estate of Oscar B. Cintas (1887-1957), a former Cuban ambassador to the United States and a prominent industrialist and patron of the arts. Cintas fellowships encourage creative development in architecture, literature, music composition and the visual arts. The Cintas fellowships program is administered by the Cintas Foundation board and by the Cintas Fellowship Program of the Frost Art Museum at Florida International University.

Every winter, the Cintas Foundation invites applications in the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, installation art, design, video art, photography and filmmaking. The award carries a $15,000 cash prize which is used by the winner to further his or her creative development. Past recipients include painter Jos� Bedia, the late F閘ix Gonz醠ez-Torres who will represent the United States at this year's Venice Biennale, installation artist Teresita Fern醤dez, sculptor Mar韆 Elena Gonzalez, and the painter Carlos Alfonzo, among many others.

The Selection Program is administered by the Cintas Foundation board and the Cintas Fellows Program at the Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University.