MIAMI, FLA.- The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation is presenting No black / No white (no and), an exhibition of works by CIFO’s 2017 Grants & Commissions Program Award recipients. The exhibition is on view through November 5, 2017 at CIFO Art Space in Miami, coinciding with the Foundation’s fifteen-year anniversary.
No black / No white (no and) exhibits the work of the nine award recipients from six countries, divided into three categories: the Achievement Award, given to Mexican-American multimedia artist Daniel Joseph Martinez; Mid-Career Artists—Richard Garet (Uruguay) and Fredy Alzate (Colombia); and Emerging Artists—Ilich Castillo (Ecuador), Alana Iturralde (Puerto Rico), Juan Carlos Osorno (Colombia), the duo Celia & Yunior (Cuba), Katherinne Fiedler (Peru) and Ulrik López (Mexico/Puerto Rico).
The exhibition, the title of which references a statement written by John Cage in 1953 in response to Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings (1951), presents works that reflect on the reality faced in Latin America today. Now more than ever, perspectives of the geo-political, social, economic, and cultural structures of Latin American art production and its place in the market are placed within a global context.
The aesthetic of the works presented by this year’s artists are indicative of current issues in Latin America, and is made evident by Achievement Award winner, Daniel Joseph Martinez, an LA-based artist whose Mexican-American roots allow for an exploration of violence on a global scale. With previous works being shown alongside new pieces created for this exhibition, the mini-retrospective grasps ideas that expand the field of identification and create a new cartography. Some of his works that address the issues of black/white in a more direct manner, such as the museum tags he created for the 1993 Whitney Biennial that read “I Can’t Imagine Ever Wanting to be White,” are also being presented in the exhibition.
The work of mid-career Award winners Richard Garet and Fredy Alzate investigate contemporary realities in both urban structures and isolated communities respectively. Garet’s work approaches how people deal with sound when living in a city. By placing his work within the walls of the exhibition space, he creates an interactive piece where the audience must approach the wall to hear what is going on “on the other side.” Alzate’s large-scale sculptures replicate voids left by mining done in the outskirts of cities throughout Colombia and allude to the relationship between nature and the economic and political dimension created by human action.
“This exhibition is one of the highlights of the year for us, and we are honored to be able to display the works of our innovative and talented Grants & Commissions Program Award winners,” says Manuel de Santaren, Board President of CIFO.
Other projects by Emerging Award winners include an arrangement of reappropriated found objects by Ilich Castillo, which forces viewers to question the representation of a material’s use; an installation of ceramics and embroidery by Alana Iturralde, which examines and studies the process of art making; an investigation on the various departments at the University of Havana by duo Celia & Yunior; a 3-channel video installation depicting the erosion caused by mining practices in archaeological sites in Peru by Katherinne Fiedler; both fine drawings and sculptures by Juan Osorno created to imitate historically failed human inventions which bring to light the need for both progress and failure; and Ulrik López’s decorative brick column which invites viewers to closely observe the sculptures inside, an indicator of the isolation of the Caribbean Islands.
During the No Black / No White (no and) exhibition, CIFO will also debut the publication No black / No white (no and) – On Latin American Art in the 21st Century on October 20, 2017, with editorial coordination by CIFO director Eugenio Valdes Figueroa and co-editor Ana Clara Silva. The publication includes a selection of historical works from CIFO’s Grants & Commission Program Award recipients, as well as essays by renowned art historians José Roca and Cuauhtémoc Medina. A CIFO Talk in collaboration with the New World School of the Arts, is also scheduled for that day featuring guest speaker Daniel Joseph Martinez, Achievement Award recipient.
