The San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Engraving (1970-2001), the first and oldest meeting ground for the Latin American graphic arts, became in 2004 the San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial: Latin America and the Caribbean. This transformation arose from the necessity to grant contemporary art events a place of great relevance.
The Triennial, an official event of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, expands the spectrum of the graphic arts, from the traditional engraving to the more ample concept of polygraphic art, which includes all kinds of mediums and artistic languages. Before the foundation of the Triennial in 2004, there weren’t any other events of it’s kind on a continental level. In 2005, the Triennial won the Grand Prize from the XXVI Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, in Slovenia. Also, the innovative concept of the Triennial has contributed to making this event a paradigmatic one for other biennials.
The San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial: Latin America and the Caribbean is the art’s event in which Puerto Rico honors the Latin American, the Caribbean, and the universal.
Mission:
- to establish and maintain in San Juan a contemporary art event that is significant to the national and international artistic community, that celebrates and promotes excellence, creativity, diversity, participation and debate in order to enhance the profile of Puerto Rico as a center of cultural tourism ;
- to turn Puerto Rico into a dynamic cultural bridge between artists and people from the Caribbean, Latin America and the Unites States.
Objectives:
- to situate Puerto Rico in the international cultural scene in terms of a wider innovating model of cultural interaction between the Americas ;
- to synchronize active efforts and interagency resources in order to increase the public’s attendance to the event ;
- to provide a platform for an exchange between the Puerto Rican and the Latin American artistic communities, including the ones residing in the United States;
- to promote artistic experimentation in the graphic mediums and the reproducible image;
- to stimulate intellectual debate in Puerto Rico;
- to incorporate Puerto Rico to the cultural tourism circuit.