The first ever Montevideo Biennial

The first edition of the Biennial de Montevideo, is titled "Big Sur" and will be held during thirty days between October and November 2012, right in the middle of the Biennial of São Paulo, Brazil which is taking place between 8 September and 9 December. The budget for the Uruguyan Biennale could reach around 2 M. Dollars and is managed by the Laetitia d'Aremberg Foundation xxx.Its artistic director is the artist Gustavo Tabares (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1968) and its curator is Alfons Hug, who will work in collaboration with two other curators: Paz Guevara, from Chile and who lives in Berlin and collaborator of Hug, and curator, artist and new media director of the CCE / Spanish Cultural Centre of Montevideo, the Uruguayan Patricia Bentancur in charge of selecting local artists for the Biennial.

The site chosen to welcome the Biennial are three pavilions in the exhibition center of the Rural del Prado but will also extend to other areas of the city including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Figari Museum, the National Museum of Visual Arts, among other exhibition centres.

The programme of the Bienniale is intended to involve artists from five continents, who will be selected by Alfons Hug and his team. This prestigious international curator, of German origin, is currently director of the Goethe Institute in Rio de Janeiro and has participated in this initiative from the beginning. Hug has twice curated the Biennale of Sao Paulo, and also the End of the World Biennial, in Ushuaia, Argentina, and this 2011. He has also been the curator of the ILLA Pavilion (Instituto Italo-Latino Americano) of the 54^th Venice Biennale and the Biennial of Curitiba, Brazil.

On the other hand, in the Biennale itself will not only exhibitions but also a calendar of activities aimed at training and exchange, with workshops, lectures, panel discussions, seminars, educational programs and intend to work with the people of Plan Ceibal schools and colleges and public and private. The organizers are very interested in the educational and social as well as this event is disseminated within the country, because they want to become a unique opportunity for many people to see artists of international renown. This biennial, which is part of the Cultural Incentive Funds (ie, enterprises must receive tax benefits) and that has been gestating for a year and a half, even pretend to put Uruguay on the map of international visual arts .