10 DEFINING Experiments

2006 CIFO Grants & Commissions Program Exhibition

CIFO Art Space, Miami │ October 5 - November 12, 2006

10 Defining Experiments, cifo’s inaugural Grants Program exhibition, is at the heart of cifo’s greatest commitment: broadening the global understanding of work by contemporary artists from Latin America, and moving beyond the traditional stereotypes associated with Latin American art. Contemporary artists in from this region are producing some of the most challenging and exciting art today. In spite of this, there is not enough awareness of this complex and multiple art production and there still exists a tendency to generalize Latin America as a uniform continent, and to appreciate art from Latin America as unified in style–usually decorative and conventional–and subject matter as grounded uncritically on a nostalgic past and based on essentialist notions of identity.

This exhibition is the culmination of the 2006 Grants Program. The ten artists are each recipients of a grant; they were selected among various projects presented by nominated artists, and given the opportunity to produce and exhibit their project. The ten projects exhibited defy these very notions and stereotypes associated with art from Latin America. The subjects and issues addressed by the artists are varied and range from a formal discussion on the nature of the still life in painting, to poignant statements about violence in Latin America, to investigations on the nature of language, knowledge and history. A shared element found in the projects is an experimental, investigative, praxis: a discursive process whereby each artist attempts to arrive at definitions to question, but not necessarily to fully answer, complex layers of meaning found in everyday life.