Charo Oquet’s installation “En un abrir y cerrar de ojos” [roughly translated as “in a blink of an eye”] won the Grand Prize at the 2011 National Biennial of Visual Arts in Santo Domingo. The 26th edition of the National Biennial of Visual Arts was inaugurated by the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Culture at the Santo Domingo Museum of Modern Art [Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM).
Director of the MAM María Elena Ditrén (MAM) gave the opening words and the keynote speech was delivered by Minister of Culture José Rafael Lantigua. Representing the Prize Jury, Alanna Lockward announced the award winning artists of the 2011 Biennial.
The Biennial Grand Prize (of 500,000 Dominican pesos) was awarded to Charo Oquet for her installation, “En un abrir y cerrar de ojos.” Five other artists received awards (of 250,000 Dominican pesos each): Eliú Almonte for his performance “La casa;” Orlando Barría for the photograph entitled “Muñecas sin rostro;” Moisés Pellerano for his painting “Rape?”; Pancho Rodríguez for the installation “Mi = muro;” and Orlando Menicucci for his painting “Una tierra códice antillana.”
The Special Prize for Young Artist (150,000 Dominican pesos) was awarded to Wali Vidal for his diptych “El viernes,” from the series “Viernes, sábado y domingo.”
In the Honorable Mention category, three pieces were showcases: the mixed media painting “Aída, las Virgencitas y los 7 Frank,” by Citally Miranda; “Topología tropical” a five-part polyptych by Limber Vilorio; and the photograph “Disolución al 4%,” by Mayra Johnson and Guadalupe Casanova.
This year, the biennial received a total of 450 works of various genres, styles, and formats. Of these, the jury chose 17 installations, 5 videos, 12 photographs, 21 drawings, 41 paintings, 7 graphic works, 5 audiovisual, and a ceramic work, for a total of 109 works that will be exhibited at the MAM.
The MAM is located at Plaza de la Cultura Juan Pablo Duarte. You may contact the museum by calling (809) 685-2153 (2154, 2155, 2156) Extension 233 or (809) 860-2507 or writing to prensa.mam@gmail.com.
For full articles (in Spanish), see http://www.almomento.net/news/134/ARTICLE/94009/2011-08-19.html and http://www.artfornews.com/26-bienal-nacional-de-artes-visuales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Stephen_Alexis
The title of Charo Oquet´s piece is a quote from a novel by the great
Haitian writer Jacques Stephen Alexis: L’Espace d’un Cillement (1959), translated into English as: In the Flicker of an Eyelid.
By: Alanna Lockward on August 28, 2011
at 9:07 am