New Genres: Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito

The Brazil Award returns to the Center of Contemporary Art in Quito

May 04, 2022 | Analía Vallejo Larrea

A new edition of the Brazil Award will be inaugurated on May 27 at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito (CAC).

Image: Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito

The Brazil Award - Emerging Art is a call for entries that comes from the alliance between the Brazilian Embassy in Ecuador and the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito. This year, the award is celebrating its fifth edition.

Furniture to look for lizards (2019) by Gabriela Fabre (artwork of the 4th edition of the Brazil Award)

The idea is to create a platform for exchange and visibility for new Ecuadorian artists, promoting their work in the field of visual arts in Ecuador, and, in turn, forming the cultural heritage of the Embassy of Brazil in Ecuador. Thus, in addition to promoting the production of young Ecuadorian artists, it favors artistic exchange between Ecuador and Brazil.

Once upon a time... (2019) by Irene Domínguez (artwork of the 4th edition of the Brazil Award)

To participate, artists, both individually and as a collective, must be Ecuadorians under 35 years of age, exploring any of the following formats: painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving, installation, video, performance, objects, photography, audiovisual media, etc.

Selected Artists of the 5th edition of the Brazil Award

The Selection Committee consisted of two agents from the local contemporary art scene and a representative from the Center for Contemporary Art, who were appointed by the Embassy of Brazil in Ecuador and the CCA. This committee was responsible for choosing the shortlisted works that are part of the Temporary Exhibition Brazil Award 2022 – Emerging Art. In addition, they decide the winners of the Brazil Award, which has two categories: Residency and Acquisition.

A thousend times, Oh Patria (2019) by David Jarrín (artwork of the 4th edition of the Brazil Award)

The Acquisition Award, consists of the acquisition by the Brazilian Embassy of the winning artwork in the amount of $3000, with the purpose of making the winning work part of the artistic collection and the permanent exhibition of the Brazilian Embassy in Ecuador. The Residency Award, on the other hand, allows the winner to carry out an artistic stay in Pivô, São Paulo, thanks to the support of Produbanco. This award is valued at $3000 and is carried out under a program of extensive experience in the training of artists, based on the critical monitoring of projects and facilitating the development of the artworks. The value of the award includes round-trip airfare and lodging for the artist for one month.

Submersion (2019) by ADA Collective (artwork of the 4th edition of the Brazil Award)

The fourth edition was held in 2019 and received 95 applications, from which 16 finalist artists were selected. The Acquisition Prize was awarded to Karla Torres, with her work "Acuerdate de mí" (Remember me), where the artist embroiders hair of Mixe women (Ayuujk, located in Oaxaca-Mexico), on the napkins where they usually keep their tortillas. With this, the artist seeks not to forget the indigenous peoples and their practices, as well as to reflect on embroidery as a technique associated with femininity. Torres works on concepts such as cosmology, lineage, everyday life and affection.

Remember me (2019) by Karla Torres (Winning artwork of the Acquisition Prize of the 4th edition of the Brazil Award)

The Residency Award went to David Cevallos, with the work "Piedra Luna" (moon rock), where he speaks of detachment from matter, as he creates his work from the destruction of old artworks by the artist himself, through a ritual. Thus, he works concepts such as restarting and change.

Moon Rock (2019) by David Cevallos (Winning artwork of the Residency Prize of the 4th edition of the Brazil Award)

The awards ceremony of the fifth edition will take place on May 27 at 19:00 pm at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito, from that moment on, the winners of both the acquisition award and the residency award will be announced, as well as the rest of the artworks selected by the curatorial committee.

Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito

Territory, border, origin and body - concepts that we can find in the exhibition "Raíz"

November 14, 2021 | Analía Vallejo Larrea

This art display contains the work of 22 artists from around the world, who propose the reconstruction of great myths of the colonial era, through new critical views. In this way, the artists show that these myths, despite being outdated, continue to be reproduced. The exhibition invites the public to break with these great myths, thinking about new ways of building the world and new ways of relating, both with each other and with nature.

The exhibition is located in the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito, and was curated by Eduardo Carrera and Jorge Sánchez. The works of art on display are part of 'Dispossessions in the Americas: The Extraction of Bodies, Land, and Heritage from La Conquista to the Present' an interdisciplinary project designed to document dispossessions of land, embodiments, and cultural values in the Americas from 1492 to today. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a $ 5 million grant to support this project.

Stone Butch (2020) by Lucía Egaña and Julia Salgueiro

Raíz (roots), evidences a critical vision of the position of the human being as the center of everything, thus, in the search for new narratives, the exhibition starts from three thematic areas: Displacements of the territory, The knowledge of the body and the meat and Wild gardens, with artworks produced from 1998 to 2021.

Image: Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quio

In Displacements of the territory issues related to human mobility are explored, where movement is questioned not only in physical space, but also in symbolic space, opening the door to new ways of conceiving territory and migration.

The rebellion of the roots (2021) by Daniela Ortiz

On the other hand, The knowledge of the body and the meat, works on the conception of the body, especially in relation to the multiple identities, the artists investigate new forms of representation of the body beyond the colonial heteropatriarchal binary.

Lamento Guaraní (2017) by Carlos Martiel

Finally, in Wild gardens, the viewer meets the most hidden corners of nature, through works that show how devastating human beings can be with it, but also, what alternatives exist to care for and protect nature.

(séro)TROPICAL(e) (2018) by Gian Cruz

The artists that are part of "Raíz" are: Karina Aguilera Skvirsky (Ecuador / USA), Felipe Baeza (Mexico / USA), Tania Bruguera (Cuba), Saskia Calderón (Ecuador), Sebastián Calfuqueo (Chile), Carolina Caycedo (England / Colombia), Gian Cruz (Philippines / Spain), Colectivo Ayllu (Transgressive migrants from the Kingdom of Spain), Catrileo + Carrión Community (Chile), Frau Diamanda (Peru), Arisleyda Dilone (Dominican Republic), Lucía Egaña (Chile / Spain) and Julia Salgueiro (Brazil / Spain), Camilo Godoy (Colombia / USA), Regina Jose Galindo (Guatemala), Kasumi Iwama (Japan / Ecuador), The Granddaughters of Nonó (Puerto Rico), José Luis Macas (Ecuador), Carlos Martiel (Cuba / USA), Joiri Minaya (Dominican Republic / USA), Lizette Nin (Dominican Republic / Spain), Daniela Ortíz (Peru) and Óscar Santillán (Ecuador / Holland).

"Ranti Ranti - Acuerdo de trueque" Project (2021) by José Luis Macas

For this exhibition the artists used a great variety of techniques in their works, we can find photography, video, performance, and various installations, one of them is The Cloaking by Joiri Minaya, who criticizes the use of tropical patterns as homogenizers of Caribbean identities. In this work, the artist creates original patterns based on ethnobotanical research, Minaya draws those plants that are used as medicine or in purge rituals, and draws them, following the same aesthetic lines as the illustrations for botanical catalogs drawn by the former colonists.

The Cloaking (2020) by Joiri Minaya

The Ayllu collective, on the other hand, makes an installation of several stations, which criticizes the western and heterosexual construction of the colonial project that began in 1492, a project that is still present today. The installation includes walls covered with collage images, some videos, and different lights, smells and sounds that set a space full of anti-colonial symbols.

Migrantes transgresorxs (2009) by Ayllu collective

We can find this exhibition until March 2022, it can be visited from Wednesday to Sunday, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito.

The Brazil Award returns to the Center of Contemporary Art in Quito

Territory, border, origin and body - concepts that we can find in the exhibition "Raíz"

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