Deferred Archive

The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) is excited to present this year’s Grants & Commissions Program exhibition, Deferred Archive. This marks the eleventh edition of CIFO’s initiative, showcasing newly commissioned works by Jorge Mendez Blake, Milena Bonilla, Miguel Calderón, Antonio Caro, Benvenuto Chavajay, José Gabriel Fernández, Sofía Olascoaga, Manuela Ribadeneira, Laureana Toledo, and Santiago Villanueva.

Deferred Archive explores the concept that memory is constructed retrospectively—not simply from the past to the future, but rather from the future back to the past. This idea suggests that the events we experience are fluid, shifting from one perspective to another. In his book Return of the Real, Hal Foster draws on the Freudian theory of deferred action to illustrate how we can understand the history of avant-garde art. He posits that a traumatic event may be reinterpreted by a subsequent event that retroactively alters its significance.

Foster argues that the relevance of avant-garde events similarly involves a complex interplay of anticipation and reconstruction. This dynamic is evident when artists engage with the concept of the archive, which serves as a vital framework for understanding how memory is formed.

The notion of the deferred archive symbolizes an artist’s retrospective examination of past events, categorizing them to grasp a specific moment. Revisiting these events through a contemporary lens grants them a renewed existence—a form of documentation that enables memory to emerge in the present, shaped by later experiences. For the artists in CIFO’s 2013 Grants & Commissions Program, this approach is not about seeking memories but actively creating them through documentation and archiving. The process of post-event documentation, or belated documentation, thus embodies the essence of the deferred archive.

This year, CIFO has partnered with Cannonball, an artist residency in Downtown Miami, to offer one artist from the Grants & Commissions Program a two-month residency. The Board of Directors selected Guatemalan artist Benvenuto Chavajay for this opportunity, allowing him to focus on developing his project in the months leading up to the exhibition.

Artists

Milena Bonilla (Colombia) Benvenuto Chavajay González (Guatemala) Jorge Méndez Blake (Mexico) Sofía Olascoaga (México) Manuela Ribadeneira (Ecuador) Santiago Villanueva (Argentina) Miguel Calderón (Mexico) José Gabriel Fernández (Venezuela) Laureana Toledo (Mexico) Antonio Caro (Colombia).