Second edition of the Julius Baer Art Prize for Latin American Female Artists. Bogotá Museum of Modern Art – MAMBO. Bogotá – Colombia

The Julius Baer Art Prize for Latin American Female Artists is a biennial award initiated by Julius Baer and the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art – MAMBO. The mission of the Julius Baer Art Prize is to honour the work of Latin American female artists for their innovation, research, and influence in contemporary art. This is the first prize of its kind held in Latin America and is by invitation only, open to every media, and without age limit.

The five jury members proposed an initial list of 25 artists from Latin America and the Caribbean. Among those shortlisted, five artists were selected during the voting meeting in which their artistic innovation and trajectory are crossed with other expert criteria. The following five finalists have been invited to present a site-specific project: Mónica Mayer (Mexico, 1954); Ana Gallardo (Argentina, 1958); Renata Lucas (Brazil, 1971); Sol Calero (Venezuela, 1982); and Ximena Garrido-Lecca (Peru, 1980). The winner will receive a cash prize to produce a new site-specific project, which will open at MAMBO in July 2023.

This new edition of the prize reflects on various themes, such as Latin American art and the features that distinguish it from other artistic currents in the world. Likewise, it focuses on the contributions of Latin American women to contemporary art and promotes the visibility of women artists in Latin America. It also offers a vision of the discourses, concepts, and recurrent concerns of the artists from the region. Finally, it is an innovative way of addressing the intersection between gender, nationalities, and territorialities that permeate cultural and artistic productions, all within the framework of contexts historically situated in certain national realities.

The award winner of the inaugural edition of the prize, Chilean artist Voluspa Jarpa (Rancagua, 1971) and her project Sindemia, portrayed a necessary memory of the social unrest that occurred in both Chile and Colombia in late 2019. Her project provided a multifaceted approach to the urgency for documentation and visibility of human rights violations during the protests. Sindemia will tour at the MUNTREF, Center of Contemporary Art (Hotel of Immigrants), Buenos Aires in October 2022, and at the Gabriela Mistral Center (GAM) in Santiago on March 1, 2023.