What is BIENALSUR?

BIENALSUR is the International Biennial of Contemporary Art in South America. 

BIENALSUR started in 2015 with the South Global meetings, platform of reflection on contemporary art and culture. Its first edition took place in 2017, where more than 300 artists and curators participated with artistic proposals in the five continents. The second edition of BIENALSUR took place between May and November 2019 and expanded to 112 venues in 47 cities of 21 countries.

Organized by UNTREF (Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero) -an Argentinean public university- its rector Aníbal Jozami is its Director General, and the Director of the Art and Culture Area, Diana Wechsler, is its Artistic-Academic Director.

BIENALSUR seeks to connect simultaneously the public of the five continents. In 2019, more than 800 artists and curators participated in this platform and it is expected that this number will be surpassed in 2021. The exhibitions are held in different museums, cultural centers, buildings and emblematic areas of the public space with the purpose of generating a global network of institutional associative collaboration that erases distances and borders, and that claims singularity in diversity. Unprecedented in its methodology, BIENALSUR includes works and projects that are the result of open international calls. The idea of this broad call is to invite artists and curators to think about specific and original unprecedented proposals, beyond an issue that would conditions them, enabling them to follow their own quests.

In the second call, 5025 proposals were received from 76 countries. The selection was made by an International Curatorial Council, constituted by prestigious professionals from different backgrounds. The criterion for selecting the projects was again the quality of each submission -both in conceptual and aesthetic terms-. 

The call for entries is totally free, with no pre-established theme to identify the active agendas in each site. From the analysis of the projects received, the Curatorial Council establishes the axes of each edition of BIENALSUR. 

With its own cartography, a specific territory and route, BIENALSUR opens up to an expanded South almost on a planetary scale that brings together artists and curators from the five continents. The map has as KM 0 the MUNTREF (the Immigration Museum and the Contemporary Art Center of the UNTREF) in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in the second edition it reached KM 18.370 in Tokyo, Japan.

Who are in charge of this project?

Those who are in charge of this project are professionals dedicated to the management of public spaces for training and development, specialized in the area of art and culture. Organized by the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (UNTREF) of the Argentinean Republic, BIENALSUR has its rector Aníbal Jozami as General Director and Diana Wechsler as Artistic-Academic Director. 

ANÍBAL JOZAMI

/ GENERAL DIRECTOR OF BIENALSUR

Aníbal Jozami is a sociologist specialized in International Relations, a businessman and an art collector. He is the Rector of the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero and the Director of the museums of the same university. In 1993, Jozami founded the Foro del Sur Foundation, a nongovernmental organization whose mission is to gather political, business and academic leaders to formulate state policies for South America. In 2015 the culture ministers of the South American countries, endorsed the BIENALSUR project because of the interest for the region and its global projection. He was distinguished for the French Republic with the Chevalier of the Ordre of the arts and the Ordre al Merit.

DIANA WECHSLER

/ ARTISTIC AND ACADEMIC DIRECTOR OF BIENALSUR

Diana Wechsler has a doctorate in Art History, is a CONICET (National Council for Scientific and Technical Research) researcher and a curator. She is the Director of the "Dr. Norberto Griffa" Institute for Research in Art and Culture and the Master's Degree in Curatorial Studies at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero. She is the Artistic Director of the museums of this university and Professor of Argentinean Art at the UBA (University of Buenos Aires). She has obtained scholarships and grants such as the Getty Foundation Postdoctoral Scholarship and the awards for Art Essays and Curatorships from the International Association of Art Critics and Scientific Production of the Argentine Senate. She was distinguished by the French Republic with the honorary title of Chevalier des Palmes Academiques.