The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation presents Shifting Constructs, its 2009 Grants and Commissions Programs exhibition. The exhibition presents new work from the award recipients of both programs in one single exhibition, which represents a unique opportunity for a dynamic dialogue between artists of different generations, in one single platform.

As in the previous grant cycles, the artists for this exhibition were not selected based on a specific curatorial structure. Instead, the highly innovative work is a culmination of a year-long process during which artists are nominated and chosen among hundreds of proposals to develop and produce new work to share with audiences in Miami. Only after this chance happening of sorts is created does a common link between the pieces in the exhibition become evident and the striking dialogue between works surfaces.  

The title of the show, Shifting Constructs, alludes to a common practice among all the work in the exhibition of remaking, re-approaching, questioning and manipulating established paradigms of history, ideas, materials and images.  The artists presented explore themes such as maps, identity, memory and archives, among others, through an exciting combination of video, installation, photography, sound and drawing.  As Elvis Fuentes articulates in his essay, The Art of Suspicion, published in the forthcoming extended brochure, the artists in this exhibition confront such themes "from a point of view that is both diaphanous and searching." This inquisitive approach common to all the works illustrates a constant shift of perceptions and ideas in to a forum where new possibilities of questioning are established.

Commission Recipients

Dora Longo Bahia (Brazil)
Oscar Muñoz (Colombia)

Grant Recipients

Miguel Amat (Venezuela)
Gabriel Antolínez (Colombia)
Suwon Lee (Venezuela)
Juan León (Ecuador)
Ricardo Réndon (Mexico)
José Ruiz (Peru)

(*Image: Suwon Lee, THE CLASH, 2008, Installation consisting of 75 photographs and colored fluorescents, Dimensions variable, courtesy the artist.)