Descripción del Premio
CINTAS Foundation President Victor Deupi announced the winners at the annual Awards Ceremony during a special reception held at the Coral Gables Museum. The 2017-18 awards were presented to: CINTAS Foundation Fellowship in Architecture & Design - Anthony García; CINTAS Foundation Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition - Flores Chaviano; and CINTAS-Knight Foundation Fellowship in Visual Arts – Pavel Acosta Proenza.
Pavel Acosta Proenza, a visual artist and photographer, earned his Masters of Fine Arts at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana and now lives and works in Miami. He is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies and has exhibited his work internationally. “[In Cuba] I had little access to the unaffordable art materials (previously subsidized by the schools) and came up with the idea of stealing dry paint from the crumbling walls of the city and the objects around me to do collages of recycled paint on paper and canvas. This was an attitude. I wanted to explore surviving as an artist in the same way people do in Cuba – smuggling the State resources in the black market as the way to compensate for scarcities. “In 2010, we relocated to the States. This experience impacted my work in many ways –not only did I gain easier access to art materials, but also the priceless possibility to appreciate masterpieces from museums such as MoMA or the Met. Nevertheless, the beginnings as an immigrant were in the construction world. This experience was key to my working process in this country and is incorporated in my recent works where I couldn't renounce stealing. In 2013 I was able to go back to working in my studio. I started recycling construction materials to reproduce masterpieces in a 1:1 scale. This is a slow, ongoing series due to the level of research and detail it entails.”
CINTAS Knight Foundation Fellowship in the Visual Arts Finalists for this year were: Néstor Arenas, Rigoberto Díaz, Mari Claudia García Ruiz, Francisco Masó and Grethell Rasúa.
The competition has recognized creative accomplishments by Cuban artists of the diaspora in the various artistic movements over the last five decades. This year’s competition marks the first time that artists from the island have been included and able to apply. Winners are invited to become part of the CINTAS Fellows Collection through their artistic donations to the one of-a-kind collection of Cuban art unique in its representation of the increasingly important works of said artists and creative movements since 1963. It is also one of the largest bodies of Cuban art outside of Cuba.
Exposición. 17 dic de 2024 - 16 mar de 2025 / Museo Picasso Málaga / Málaga, España
Formación. 01 oct de 2024 - 04 abr de 2025 / PHotoEspaña / Madrid, España