1st Biennial of the Frontiers
BORDERS
Director: Libertad García Cabriales
Executive Director and Chief Curator: Othón Castañeda
Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico
March 5 – May 31, 2015
Opening: March 5, 2015, 7 PM
The Museum of Contemporary Art of Tamaulipas (MACT) presents the results of the public open call issued by the Biennial of the Frontiers, a program sponsored by the Government of the State of Tamaulipas through the Instituto Tamaulipeco para la Cultura y las Artes (ITCA) in coordination with Mexico’s Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA).
The Biennial achieves its objective of assembling emerging curators and artists in a plural, diverse and contrasting exhibition that establishes a dialogue between artistic expressions belonging to three ambits of visual creation: the region, the country, and the global scene. Its content includes videos, installations, objects, photographs, mixed media and painting as manifestations of diversity, grouped together and revolving around the concept of Borders, the Biennial’s theme.
Three commissioned curatorial projects and 55 participating artists hailing from 22 countries or territories constitute the results of the biennial of the frontiers, to be exhibited at the museum of contemporary art of tamaulipas focusing on the concept of borders.
Curatorial Proposals:
First award sinning: The curatorial proposal presented by Paola Eguiluz and Silverio Orduña, from Ecatepec, Mexico titled “Punto Ciego”, which included the participation of Alejandra Martín Bonilla (Caracas), Ana Belén Paizanni Vásquez (Mexico City), Benito González (Hermosillo), Érika Fernanda Reyna Cervantes (Villahermosa), Rodrigo Jardón Galeana, (México, D.F.) and Tania Solomonoff (Rosario).
The second award-winning curatorial proposal was “Limites Nómadas”, curated by Virginia Roy and Claudia Segura, from Barcelona, Spain, which incorporated works by artists Joaquín Segura (Mexico City), Levi Orta (Havana), Pedro Torres (Glória de Dourados), Pınar Öğrenci (Van), Vahida Ramujkic (Belgrade), Nuria Güell (Vidreres) and Laura Marte (Menorca).
The third curatorial script selected was the one presented by Amanda de la Garza, from Monclova, Mexico, which includes works by artists Ernesto Bautista (Santa Ana), Andy Robert (Les Cayes), Mónica Rodríguez, (San Juan) and Isaac Torres (Mexico City) under the title “Un cuerpo, dentro de una isla, en un río, dentro de un volcán, en una plaza, en una calle, en una ciudad”.
Because of the great quality of the curatorial projects submitted, the Biennial of the Frontiers’ Organizing Committee decided to grant three honorable mentions to the curatorial proposals presented by Rodolfo Andaur, from Iquique, Chile; Juan Delgado Calzadilla, from Havana, Cuba abd Julia Libertad Villaseñor Bell, from Hermosillo, Mexico.
Emerging Artists:
With regard to the category of emerging artists, a category for which more than 1,600 entries by interested artists were received, the winner of the First Prize for Artists was the sculpture and multichannel sound installation titled “V.F(i)n_1”, by artist Luz María Sánchez, from Guadalajara, Mexico. The Second Prize of the Biennial went to the video work “443”, by artist Maya Yadid, from Jerusalem, Israel.
Other selected and prize-winning artists in the different modalities were Heliodoro Santos Sánchez (Mexico), Claudio Correa (Chile), Gina Arizpe, (Mexico), Eric Bourret (France), Manuela Viera-Gallo (Italy), Armando Miguelez Giambruno, (United States), Pablo López Luz (Mexico), Andrés Felipe Castaño (Colombia), Florencia Levy (Argentina), Efraín Salinas Salinas (Mexico), Maryam Ashkanian (Iran), Fábio Leão (Brazil), Roberto Juárez Cervantes (Mexico) and Jéssica de la Garza (Mexico). In the modality of Guest Artists, the winners were the Belgian artist Julien Friedler and the Mexicans Emilio Chapela, Rodrigo Hernández, Manuel Mathar and Rogelio Raúl Meléndez Cetina.
In the category of Emerging Artists, the Organizing Committee of the Biennial of the Frontiers decided to award honorable mentions to artists Verónica Meloni (Argentina), Alberto Ibáñez Cerda (Mexico), the collective of artists composed of Aglaia Haritz and Zerrou Abdelaziz (Switzerland-Morocco), Tom Henderson (United Kingdom) and Carlos Humberto Ramírez Lara (Mexico). Works by other artists participating in the Biennial, such as Paloma Ayala, Calixto Ramírez, Francisco Eduardo Planas Abarca, Luis Enrique Pérez, Mauricio Cortés & Laura Serejo, Mauricio Sáenz, Verónica Bapé, Lorena Verástegui and Luis Alberto Barrón Santos, have been acquired through the Acquisition Fund.
Selection Committee:
The Selection Committee was composed of María del Carmen Aguirre Treviño, visual artist and architect (Mexico), Leonor Amarante, journalist and guest curator at the Curitiba Biennial (Brazil), Julia P. Herzberg, art historian and Adjunct Curator at the Frost Art Museum (United States), Guillermo Santamarina, Chief Curator at the Carrillo Gil Art Museum (Mexico) and Emiliano Valdés, Curator at the Gwangju Biennial and the Museum of Modern Art in Medellín (South Korea / Colombia).
The commissions, prizes and recognitions all meet the interest of the Biennial of the Frontiers in identifying artists with innovative proposals, as well as in serving as a platform for dialogue, exchange and critical discussion between the regional, national and global ambits. The works selected within the modality of Prizes and Acquisitions Fund will be featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Tamaulipas (MACT), the Biennial’s main venue, until May 31, 2015, and the mentioned works will be incorporated in the Collection of Contemporary Art of this Tamaulipas institution, in northeastern Mexico.