NEW YORK CITY.- In late June, the Fundación Cisneros marked the first anniversary of its educational Website devoted to modern Latin American art with the prestigious Silver IDEA, or Industrial Design Excellence Award, in the category of digital media and interfaces. The Website was produced by the New York City-based creative studio Cabengo, working in close collaboration with the Fundación Cisneros. Located at www.coleccioncisneros.org, it is available in both Flash and HTML and is accessible in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The site is based on the Colección Cisneros, which includes an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary Latin American art. It is a key element of the Fundación’s ongoing efforts to bring the achievements of Latin American artists to a global audience, and to use the visual arts as a basis for rich educational experiences.

The continually updated site is utilized by students of all ages, teachers, and the interested public. In a testimony to its rich and engaging content, the approximately 1,300 visitors per month spend an average of nearly forty minutes on the site.

In addition to the IDEA, which is presented by the Industrial Designers Society of America and sponsored by BusinessWeek, the site won the 2003 “Museums and the Web” award for Best Innovative or Experimental Application, given by Archimuse; it was also a finalist for both a 2002 New Media Award, given by the New York Festivals, and a 2002 Stockholm Challenge award.

Colección Cisneros

A core visual arts program of the Fundación Cisneros, the Colección Cisneros contains some 1,500 works, consisting primarily of modern and contemporary art, with an emphasis on Latin America, and including Latin American landscapes from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries and Colonial Latin American art. The works in the Colección show that modern art from Latin America, which has so often been associated solely with either folk art or the figurative tradition, in fact developed and continues to exist in an international context that includes avant-garde European and North American movements.

Among the artists whose work is represented in the Colección and on its Website are Carmelo Arden Quin (Argentina), Waltercio Caldas (Brazil), Lygia Clark (Brazil), Gego (Venezuela), Alfredo Hlito (Argentina), Matta (Chile), Vik Muniz (Brazil), Alejandro Otero (Venezuela), Jesús Rafael Soto (Venezuela), and Joaquín Torres-García (Uruguay). 

The Website

To encourage engagement with key aesthetic ideas and creative processes, the Website invites visitors to explore 166 works of art by 103 artists from the Colección Cisneros. It provides a set of experiences that encourage dynamic exploration, and presents the visual arts in an integrated way that blends education, imagination, and creativity.

One point of entry into the art is through six interactive themes: “Memory,” “Perception,” “Place,” “Structures,” “Traces,” and “Utopia.” In “Structures,” for example, visitors learn about distinctive innovations made by specific Latin American artists, and can examine representative works, see images of the artists, and expand their understanding —and enjoyment—of composition by constructing their own mobiles.

Other sections include “Artists & Works,” devoted to substantive information about selected artworks from the seventeenth century to the present, and a thought-provoking interactive timeline that displays information on world history, providing a rich context for the works in the Colección.

The “Study” section features an interactive map through which visitors learn about the flow of ideas between key cities in Europe and the Americas, and about how the exchange informed and was informed by many of the artists whose work is included in the Colección Cisneros. Also here are a glossary of terms, an in-depth bibliography, samples of primary writings by artists (some of them available in translation for the first time online), and an extensive study guide to assist young visitors.

A transcribed conversation with Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Chairman of the Fundación Cisneros, and independent curator Paulo Herkenhoff, consultant to the Colección Cisneros, offers a personal point of entry into the collection, its history, and its future. Visitors may access lists of current and upcoming Colección Cisneros exhibitions and publications, news stories about the Colección, and digital postcards of selected artworks featured on the site. 

Fundación Cisneros

The Fundación Cisneros was founded by Patricia Cisneros, Gustavo Cisneros, and Ricardo Cisneros, in association with the Cisneros Group of Companies. The Caracas-based foundation initiates and supports a wide range of innovative programs that derive from the belief that education and freedom of _expression are the bases of a democratic society. Fundación Cisneros programs focus on the areas of education, culture, the environment, and community and humanitarian services, and on increasing global awareness of contemporary Latin America.

The Website of the Colección Cisneros is the latest addition to a constellation of arts-related education programs that are based on its collections. Other initiatives range from an elementary-school curriculum to help children develop visual-thinking skills, to a university-level research program, to exhibitions that have been presented at international venues. 

Cabengo

Established in 2000 by Hillary Leone, Cabengo LLC is an award-winning creative studio whose practice intersects art, design, and technology. Cabengo specializes in interactive design, original content development, and identity systems for educational and cultural institutions and nonprofit organizations. For more information on Cabengo, please visit www.cabengo.com or write to info@cabengo.com.