FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE CISNEROS FONTANALS ART FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES EXHIBITION DRAWN FROM THE ELLA FONTANALS-CISNEROS COLLECTON, TO COINCIDE WITH ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2011

Frames and Documents. Conceptualist Practices. Selections from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, curated by Jesús Fuenmayor and Philippe Pirotte

Miami, August 2011 – Frames and Documents: Conceptualist Practices. Selections from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection will be on view from November 30, 2011 – March 4, 2012 and includes over 60 pieces by 41 artists from different generations and latitudes, who share a common experience of promoting and transforming conceptualist practices, which have resulted in becoming an ever-present and driving force in contemporary art today.

The exhibition overlaps geographically and chronologically, highlighting the artist's journey as historian both through an institutional critique (Frames) and through their capacity to question the ways in which we relate to memory (Documents). Because it is a selection of notable works from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, rather than following the historical canons that have dominated the study of conceptualist practices or focusing on a particular origin or time of production, the diverse set of works in this exhibition offer a route to understanding the de-decentralized and discontinuous nature that actually defines Conceptual Art.

The works included in the exhibition highlight three distinct instances within the trajectory of conceptual art between the 1960's and the late 1980's. One group of artists included in the exhibition are those associated with the birth of conceptualism: Vito Acconci, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Luis Camnitzer, Joseph Kosuth, David Lamelas and Ed Ruscha, for instance. Another group consists of artists like Marina Ambramović, Lothar Baumgarten, Juan Downey, Eugenio Espinoza, Anna Maria Maiolino, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ana Mendieta, John Smith and Francesca Woodman who, mainly working in the seventies, participated in the dissemination of conceptualist practices across geographical and cultural boundaries. The third group of artists seen in Frames and Documents are those that worked in the 1980s such as Ricardo Brey, Sophie Calle, Eugenio Dittborn, Louise Lawler, Claudio Perna, and Allan McCollum, among others.

About the Curators

Jesús Fuenmayor

Jesús Fuenmayor is a curator based in Caracas, Venezuela. Fuenmayor has been the Director of Periférico Caracas, a contemporary art space since 2005, where he has organized more than 30 exhibitions. This year, he has been the advisor for "Ciudad Sensorial", a program of urban interventions by artists which he founded for the Sucre Municipality in Caracas. He has also been a member of CIFO's Honorary Advisory Committee since 2009. He was an advisor to Museo Jacobo Borges, Caracas, 1992-1995; associate curator at Espacio 204, Caracas, 1995-1997 and held a post as a curator for the Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas, in 2004.

Fuenmayor co-curated the traveling exhibition Jump Cuts. Venezuelan Contemporary Art. Mercantil Collection which traveled to the Americas Society, New York (2005) and CIFO Art Space, Miami (2007); Demonstration Room / Ideal House, which traveled through art institutions in Caracas, New York, Antwerp and Chicago between 2001 and 2002.

Philippe Pirotte
Philippe Pirotte works as a curator and art critic based in Antwerp, Belgium since 1996. He is the founding Director of the contemporary art center Objectif Exhibitions and acted as Artistic and Managing Director of the Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland from 2005 until 2011. He is also Senior Advisor at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
Recent exhibitionprojects at the Kunsthalle Bern include The Idea of Africa (re-invented), Animism (2010), Slow Movement, Voids – A Retrospective of Empty Exhibitions (2009), Allan Kaprow – Art as Life (2007) Pre-Emptive (2006) and Villa Jelmini – The Complex of Respect (2006). Pirotte has also curated solo exhibitions with Oscar Tuazon, Dora Garcia, Rita McBride, Deimantas Narkevicius, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Stefan Brüggemann, Yutaka Sone, Marine Hugonnier, Jutta Koether, Pavel Büchler, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Carla Arocha and Corey McCorkle. He also curated Other Rooms (2010) at the Minsheng Museum, Shanghai, China; Involved (2008) at H-Space, Shanghai, China; United Technologies (2008) at Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Ireland; Camuflaje (2005) at the Fundación Celarg in Caracas, Venezuela; and Idyl-As to answer that Picture for the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp, Belgium (2005).

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The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, is a non-profit organization established in 2002 by Ella Fontanals-Cisneros and her family to support artists who are exploring new directions in contemporary art. CIFO fosters cultural understanding and educational exchange through three primary initiatives: a Grants and Commissions Program for emerging and mid-career visual artists from Latin America; an exhibitions program showcasing work by Latin American artists and international contemporary art from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection at the CIFO Art Space; and foundation-initiated support for other arts and culture projects.

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