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The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) is proud to announce Deferred Archive as this year's Grants & Commissions Program exhibition. As it is customary, the winners are part of the annual exhibition dedicated to the program at the CIFO Art Space. This year's exhibition will open to the public from August 28th to October 27th.

The tenth edition of CIFO's Grants & Commissions Program features newly commissioned works by Jorge Mendez Blake (Mexico), Milena Bonilla (Colombia), Miguel Calderon (Mexico), Antonio Caro (Colombia), Benvenuto Chavajay (Guatemala), José Gabriel Fernandez (Venezuela), Sofia Olascoaga (Mexico), Manuela Ribadeneira (Ecuador), Laureana Toledo (Mexico) and Santiago Villanueva (Argentina).

Deferred Archive refers to the idea that memory is constructed retrospectively - not from past to future, but from future to past, so that the ... events that we experience are not fixed in time, but fleeting from one subject to the other.

In Hal Foster's Return of the Real, he looks to Freudian theory of deferred action to recover psychoanalysis as a model to understand how we construct the history of avant-garde art. According to Foster, Freud's theory of deferred action is seen as an event that is recorded as traumatic when a subsequent event retroactively recodes it. Foster, in turn, proposes that the significance of the events of the avant-garde occurs in a similar way by a complex alternation of anticipation and reconstruction. Thus we see what happens when artists work with the idea of the archive. The archive becomes a distinct model in understanding how memory is constructed.

The idea of the deferred archive represents the artist looking back, activating past events and classifying them in order to understand a particular moment, as if revisiting the event with the perspective of today gives it the opportunity to really exist; a type of documentation that allows for memory to be created within the now - or, memory according to a later experience. The artist uses this model as a way of recognizing that memory is always something in the making. By looking to the past, the artists participating in CIFO's 2013 Grants & Commissions Program are not searching for a memory, but rather creating a memory through documentation/archiving. The act of post-event documentation (or belated documentation) therefore becomes the deferred archive.

'CIFO remains committed to maintaining investment and supporting contemporary artists from Latin America,' said CIFO Founder Ella Fontanals-Cisneros. 'In the tenth edition of the Grants & Commissions Program, we are very proud to honor this year's award recipients who are creating some of the most challenging and innovative work today. These awards serve as a testament to the artists' skill, creativity and vision.'

CIFO's Grants & Commissions Program offers opportunities to up to six emerging and three mid- career contemporary artists from Latin America as well as an annual Achievement award, recognizing the contributions of established artists who would benefit from significant international exposure and recognition. The funds awarded in the Grants and Commissions program are given directly to the selected artists in order to develop their pieces, providing more flexibility for the artist. The artists are nominated each year by CIFO's Honorary Advisory Committee of leading art professionals, curators and artists from Latin America, the United States, and Europe. After a rigorous review process, the recipients are chosen by the Selection Committee and ratified by CIFO's Board of Directors. Having already benefitted over a hundred artists during its ten years, the Program has been known to springboard recipients into the next level of their careers.

This year, CIFO has partnered with Cannonball, an Artist Residency based in Downtown Miami, to award one of the artists in the Grants & Commissions Program with a two month residency. CIFO's Board of Directors selected Benvenuto Chavajay from Guatemala for the residency where he will spend the months leading up to the exhibition focusing on creating his project

MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Milena Bonilla (Colombia, 1975). Solo exhibits: Bocetos para Jardín / La Piedra Sorda, La Residencia, Bogotá, 2010; Lugares comunes / Bocetos para Jardín. Alianza Colombo Francesa. Bogotá, 2004. Group shows: 2010 Un territorio en puntos suspensivos, Casa Museo Diego Rivera, Guanajuato, MX; Las Historias de un Grito, Museo Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá CO; 2009 Amsterdam Biennial, Mediamatic, Amsterdam NL; X Havana Biennial. Havana, CU. 2003 X Salón Regional de Artistas de Bogotá, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá CO.

Benvenuto Chavajay González (Guatemala, 1978) Graduated from la Escuela de Artes Plásticas, Guatemala. He further studied at the National University of Costa Rica and most recently graduated from ESPIRA/ESPORA Escuela Superior de Arte, Nicaragua in 2007.Select recent solo exhibitions include Galería Panajachel, Centro Cultural Metropolitano Antiguo Edificio de Correos, Lago de Atitlán, Caminata San Jose. Select recent group exhibitions include Centro de Formación Española, Centro Cultural de España, Centro Cultural Luís Cardoza y Aragón.

Jorge Méndez Blake (México, 1974) Lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico. His work investigates classical literature and its place in contemporary popular culture, and puts under examination the current format of the library, and the way it contains knowledge and participates in the creation of official history. Also his research involves rethinking the architecture that shapes libraries, challenging their form, function and context. Méndez Blake aims that the literary pieces becomes a formal element in the art work, an object that structures it, instead of just a narrative in the memory of a reader.

2010 - La Marquesa salio a las cinco, Museo Tamayo, Mexcio D.F. (Mexico) All the Poetry Books, Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles (USA) 2008 - The Castle, Museo de Arte Moderno, Ciudad de México (Mexico).

Sofía Olascoaga (México, 1980) Works in the intersections of art, research and education by activating spaces for critical thinking and collective action. Olascoaga is a Research Fellow at Indpendent Curators International, and completed the Whitney Museum of American Art?s Independent Study Program in 2010. Received her BFA with honors from La Esmeralda National School of Fine Arts (Mexico City). Olascoaga has collaborated in international laboratories for public programs at MoMA New York, Steirischer Herbst Festival in Austria, Experimental Nucleus for Art and Pedagogy in Rio de Janeiro, Free Thought platform by Irit Rogoff, Independent Curators International in New York, street public program La Galeria de Comercio, and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, among many others. Between Utopia and Failure, her ongoing research is focused in critically assessing the productive tension between utopia and failure of intentional community models, developed in Mexico in past decades.

Manuela Ribadeneira (Ecuador, 1966) Born and raised in Quito. He lives and works in London. His solo exhibits include: Casa Triangulo, Sao Paulo, Brasil, 2012; Los Incorruptibles - Galería adhoc, Vigo, España, 2010; To be born in a stable does not make you a horse- Teorética, San José, Costa Rica, 2008. Bienales: Procesos Bienal de Cuenca, Museo Municipal de Guayaquil, Ecuador. Curador Rodolfo Kronfle, 2009-2010; Bienal de Mercosur, Geopoéticas, Porto Alegre, Brasil, 2011; Bienal de Venecia, Pabellón Latinoamérica, IILA, 2007; Sfiles, Museo del Barrio, Nueva York, USA, 2007; Bienal del Fin del Mundo, Ushuaia, Argentina, 2005; Bienal de la Habana, (Artes No Decorativas S.A.), 2003.

Santiago Villanueva (Argentina, 1990) Licensed in Art History from Universidad del Salvador (USAL), he is now studying a Master in Argentinian & Latin American Art History from San Martin University (IDEAS). Since 2008 he attends the atelier of Diana Aisenberg. In 2010/2011 received a scholarship from the Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas (CIA). In 2011 he was selected to participate in the 8th Edition of Premio arteBA Petrobras de Artes Visuales with his proyect Adquisición. His solo exhibits include Abate Galería (2012), Peña galería (2012), Nuevo Museo Energía de Arte Contemporáneo (2011), Museo López Claro de Azul (2007) y the Teatro Argentino de La Plata (2007). Collectively he has exhibited in la Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Consulado General de Argentina en Nueva York, Parque de España en Rosario, Palais de Glace, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas. He lives and Works in Buenos Aires.

Miguel Calderón (Mexico, 1971) He received his BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1994. He has worked in paint, photography, video and installation. He has had solo exhibitions at the Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum in Mexico City, the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York City, the Museum of Natural History in Mexico City, the San Francisco Art Institute's Diego Rivera Gallery. His work focuses in the observation of human interaction. He utilizes resources at hand to create low budget video instalations. He cofounded 'La Panadería', a non-profit space that encourage new tendencies in latin american art since 1994. He has exhibited in spaces such as the Rochester Art Center, the Bienal de Sao Paolo, the Museo Tamayo, the a trienal de Yokohama, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Colección Fundación Jumex.

José Gabriel Fernández (Venezuela, 1957) Studied Fine Arts at Middlesex Polytechnic, London, 1979-82; Slade School of Fine Arts, University College London, 1986-88 and Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, 1988-89. Recent solo exhibitions at Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, NY, 2011; Sala Mendoza, Caracas, 2010; Galeria Emma Molina, Monterrey, Mexico, 2007; Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, 2003. Group shows in museums/bienals: 6ta Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brasil; Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes. Mexico, D. F.; Paralelos, Museu de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo, Brasil y Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

Laureana Toledo (Mexico, 1970) SOLO SHOWS 2006 1 1/2 Centro Fotografico Alvarez Bravo, Oaxaca, Mexico. 2005 Nombres Propios. Galeria OMR. Mexico City. (w/ Sam Samore) 2002 &. Galeria OMR. Mexico City. GROUP SHOWS Museo de Arte Reina Sofia, Museo Tamayo. Mexico City and Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City. Collections: La Coleccion Jumex, Hammer Collection, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Santa Monica Museum of Art.

Antonio Caro (Colombia, 1950) He graduated from the College of Fine Arts from the National University of Bogota. He started having interntiaonal recognition in 1970. In 1971 he participated in the second showing of Arte y Sistema in the CAYC Centro de Arte y comunicación, Buenos Aires. In 1972 he took part in the Bolsa de Trabajo in the VI Salón de Agosto in the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Bogotá. He received a medal from the XXVI Salón Nacional de Artistas (1976). He also received and Honorable Mention from the XXXI Salón de Artistas (1987). He received a Creativity Scholarship from ColCultura (1992 y 1996), a residency in México and the Guggenheim Scholarship (1998). He obtained the Premio Luis Caballero (1999). In 1978 he presented Todo está muy Caro at the XXVII Salón de Artistas Nacionales.