In its unique cartography for contemporary art, the programme in Argentina begins on Saturday 5 July at the MUNTREF Centro de Arte Contemporáneo at the Hotel de Inmigrantes. It continues on Sunday 6 at the Parque de la Memoria, Monumento a las Víctimas del Terrorismo de Estado, and at the Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco; and from Tuesday 8 at the Espacio Cultural Palacio Pereda of the Embassy of Brazil and at the Centro Cultural MATTA of the Embassy of Chile in Argentina.
BIENALSUR continues on 5 July in Buenos Aires after having inaugurated its first shows in Bogotá, Medellín and Manizales, in Colombia, on 26 June. The programme of BIENALSUR 2025 in Buenos Aires begins with three exhibitions and a performance at the MUNTREF Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Km 0 of the biennial, and continues in the coming days at the Parque de la Memoria, the Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco, the Espacio Cultural Palacio Pereda of the Embassy of Brazil and the Centro Cultural MATTA of the Embassy of Chile in Argentina.
In its 5th edition, BIENALSUR celebrates ten years of this pioneering network connecting communities and territories, which is redefining the world map of art. Its collaborative and horizontal model continues to expand and this year reaches 140 venues in more than 70 cities across five continents, building an extensive community of artists, institutions and audiences that is truly inclusive and plural. Its borderless artistic space, a direct reflection of the current concerns of creators, seeks to engage in a critical and sensitive dialogue with the most pressing issues of our time: artificial intelligence, possible futures, ecology, human rights, migration and memory. Each artistic project, each initiative in the territory, becomes a stage in a wider journey, where the local feeds the global and each voice enriches the others. BIENALSUR strongly affirms the humanist and transnational dimension of contemporary art.
As part of this initiative, Let's play will be inaugurated on 5 July at MUNTREF Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Km 0 of BIENALSUR. The exhibition, which is proposed as a reflection on the concept of play and its analogy with life and evokes Julio Cortázar's Rayuela, will cover different spaces of the museum. Among the vast repertoire of artists that it brings together are Michelangelo Pisttoleto (ITA), godfather of this edition of the biennial, Marta Minujín (ARG), Vik Muniz (BRA), Raghad Al Almahad (SAU), Carlos Amorales (MEX), Pierre Ardouvin (FRA), Fikret Atay (SWE) Liliana Porter (ARG) and Ana Tiscornia (URY), among others. ‘In this exhibition, everyone will construct their own route, will choose their own path by playing with the selected artists, by getting involved and accepting the challenge that each work proposes,’ explains Diana Wechsler, curator of the exhibition.
This project will be accompanied by the performance (d)estructura, el juego, by artists Mariangela Aponte Núñez (COL), Juan Esteban Sandoval (COL) and Alejandro Vásquez Salinas (COL).
On the same day, Tejidos Sonoros will also open to the public at MUNTREF Centro de Arte Contemporáneo. Curated by the Germans Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock (DEU) and Heike van den Valentyn (DEU), and coordinated by Cristina Sommer, the exhibition brings together works by Colectivo Tsufwelej (Fidela Flores, Martín Churba, Candelaria Aaset, Martín Churba, Candelaria Aaset) (ARG), Akinbode Akinbiyi (DEU/GBR), Sofía Bohtlingk (ARG), Florencia Rodríguez Giles (ARG), Farkhondeh Shahroudi (DEU/IRN), among others. Meanwhile, the Instituto del Tiempo Suspendido (ITS) will also take place at MUNTREF. With works by the Spanish artists Javier Bassas (ESP/Catalunia) and Raquel Friera (ESP) and curated by the BIENALSUR team, the show proposes to suspend hegemonic and imposed rhythms, denaturalising the notion of linear time to reflect on the time that digital leisure, work stress and planetary extractivism snatches from us.
On Sunday 6 July, at the Parque de la Memoria, Monumento a las Víctimas del Terrorismo de Estado, the exhibition Some Trades: Art, Work, and Job Informality in Argentina (2003-2023). The exhibition is made up of a series of works by contemporary Argentine artists who observe the world of work and its transformations in recent times, including Ana Gallardo (ARG), Emiliano Miliyo (ARG), Adriana Bustos (ARG) and Artistas Visuales Autoconvocados (ARG), among others.
"Some trades. Arte, trabajo y precariedad en Argentina (2003-2023) is not a celebratory exhibition about work or the working class,‘ explains its curator, Marcos Kramer, ’but it aims to bring together a set of images about the way in which jobs make life precarious, so that we create firm alliances that change the paradigm of sacrifice forever".
From 8 July, the exhibitions that BIENALSUR will open in the cultural spaces of the Brazilian and Chilean embassies, respectively, can be visited. The Espacio Cultural Palacio Pereda will present Crítica de la abstracción pura, with works by Elvira Amor (ESP), Elba Bairon (BOL), Leda Catunda (BRA), Juan José Cambre (ARG), Andrés Sobrino (ARG) and Mira Schendell (BRA), among others. Curated by the BIENALSUR team Florencia Battiti (ARG) and Fernando Farina (ARG), the exhibition aims to show how a part of contemporary art still draws on the experiences and explorations carried out several decades ago by the artists of modern abstraction.
The MATTA Cultural Centre of the Chilean Embassy, meanwhile, will bring together for the first time the works of the renowned photographers Paz Errázuriz (CHL) and Adriana Lestido (ARG). Under the title Errázuriz – Lestido. National Heroes | Sepur Zarco. The Conquest of Home, this exhibition will present the series ‘Próceres’ and ‘Sepur Zarco’ by Errázuriz and ‘La conquista del hogar’ by Lestido. Made in the 1980s, ‘Próceres’ is a photographic record, taken in the midst of the Chilean dictatorship, of different fragmented statues, turning the heroic gesture into a symbol of ruin and destruction. Meanwhile, in ‘Sepur Zarco’ (2019) the artist travels to Guatemala to portray a group of indigenous women who have been victims of state crimes during the civil war. For her part, Lestido will present an unpublished series of photographs, in which she unromanticises the landscape of the Arctic Circle. Curated by Fernando Farina (ARG), from the BIENALSUR team, and Cecilia Nisembaum, the exhibition proposes to affirm photography as an act of resistance and contemplation.
