First Call. Pictorial art insists, persists and resists as an incessant innovation. As a vital mantle for the aesthetic, it survives among public art spaces, universities, the global market, and the artists themselves. Tijuana Triennial: I. Pictoric International Art entices participants to conceive art beyond linear time, a point in time in which the painting itself, supposedly, would be surpassed and subjugated by contemporary art. Instead, this event wished to exhibit pictorial art, recognizing its metamorphic, recursive, controversial, experimental, resurgent, unsolved, (in)tense, and ultra-dialectical nature. Tijuana Triennial: I. Pictoric International Art summons the spirit (and neo-body) of the pictorial, through submissions of individual creators and/or artistic collectives. Chosen artworks will be exhibited from October 2021 to February 2022 at Centro Cultural Tijuana.
Organizers.The Tijuana Triennial: I. Pictoric International Art is organized by the Secretariat of Culture, through Centro Cultural Tijuana (cecut), with the collaboration of its Organizing Committee—composed of Álvaro Blancarte (original idea), Roberto Rosique (researcher) and Heriberto Yépez (conceptualizer)—and Carmen Hernández, Curator in Chief.
Guidelines
Participants. All artists over the age of 18 of any nationality can apply to this call. The only people excluded from participating will be the government officials, professional service providers of the Secretariat of Culture, and officials disqualified by the law. Only one pictorial proposal will be accepted per individual and/or collective. The artworks must be finished or be an in situ intervention project. The spirit of Tijuana Triennial is to organize an exhibition of pictorial works regarding disruption, innovation, density, and relevance; the selected artworks will be based on quality, variety, consistency, and topicality; wishing to receive a diversity of identities and genres, techniques and materials, experiences and senses, concepts and spatial-temporalities. Submitted artworks must have been elaborated during 2017–2020, must be original creations, and have not participated in any previous contest or exhibition. Regarding in situ interventions, it must be viable for them to be completed before the opening. There are no restrictions in forms or dimensions.
Procedure for the submission. This call will remain open from its publication in the official digital channels of the Secretariat of Culture (cultura.gob.mx/convocatorias) and cecut (trienal.cecut.gob.mx), until November, 2020. Applicants must send an email to the following address: infoexposiciones@cecut.gob.mx between January 1st and November 30th, 2020, at 17:00 h (pdt), with the following documentation in a single file in pdf format:
1. Personal data (full name, artist name, email, address, and telephone).
2. Copy of an official identification.
3. Title of the artwork or project.
4. Characteristics of the artwork (technique, materials, dimensions, weight, year of elaboration, technical needs for installation, and technical needs for its realization and time of elaboration, in case it’s an in situintervention).
5. Statement of the artwork (maximum 4000 characters).
6. Individual curriculum summary (maximum 6000 characters). In the case of collective submissions the concept or trajectory as a group and a curriculum summary of each member must be presented.
7. Three to five images of the artwork.
8. In the case of a proposal for in situ intervention, a work schedule must be included.
9. Production appraisal in usd.
Selection procedure. Starting from publication of this call, the Curatorial Committee will be conformed.
In response to the global demand for gender equity in the art world, this Curatorial Committee will choose at least 50% of female artists, with special emphasis on the diversity of gender identities.
The selected artworks will reflect the current state and innovation of the pictorial, as well as the technical and thematic diversity.
The selected works will be published on the official website of the Triennial, on April 9th, 2021. However, the Committee reserves the right to exclude any artwork that does not faithfully correspond to the images sent or that does not have the proper documentation attached and/or in the requested format. Any author who submits two or more artworks will be automatically disqualified.
Shipment. Selected artworks must be physically sent from 9:00 to 14:00 hours between the business days of June 1st and August 31st, 2021 to cecut’s address: Paseo de los Héroes 9350, Zona Urbana Río Tijuana, Tijuana, Baja California, 22010 (zip code)
The artworks must be sent properly packed in a wooden box or crate, preferably immobilized and insulated, with the cover screwed in.
The author must bear the shipping costs of the artwork, so he or she must purchase insurance for transfer based on the production appraisal.
If the packing of the artwork does not comply with the stipulated safety features, the Tijuana Triennial organization will have the right to exclude said artworks and have them returned to the author, who must pay the return shipping cost. Any artwork that arrives damaged will not be exhibited.
Return. The selected artworks will be returned once the exhibition is finished. cecut is responsible for the return of the artworks, they will be shipped back using the same container/packaging used by the author and through shipping company designated by cecut.
Once received and reviewed for good status, organizers will insure each work, from its arrival until its return to the author at the end of the exhibition.
The winning works will become part of the cecut’s collection, as part of this organization’s patrimony.
In a spirit of democracy, criticism, and luddism, the Tijuana Triennial establishes that the process to choose the winning artwork will be based on a triple vote:
Curatorial vote. An Award Jury will be made up of the Curatorial Committee. This Jury will sign a list of finalists in order of preference.
Participant Vote. Each selected artist or collective will vote for an artwork, refraining from voting for themselves, according to an agreement of procedure, confidentiality, and ethics that will be signed in due course.
Popular vote. The public may vote electronically on the official website of the Triennial. If at least two of these three votes coincide, such artwork will be declared the winner. If there is no coincidence, the Award Jury will meet again and resolve a final decision, which will be substantiated and available to the public to achieve the transparency of the entire process.
Awards
To encourage participation and recognize the work of artists, the organization will deliver the following incentives by the jury’s decision, through a bank transfer in Mexican pesos or the equivalent to another currency:
• First place: $1,000,000.00 pesos (mxn).
• Two honorable mentions: $250,000.00 pesos (mxn), each.
Winners must have a bank account in their name in which the payment will be made, submit their documentation for registration in the Accounting and Budget System (sicop) and Federal Integrated Financial Management System (siaff). Payment will be deposited in the account once the corresponding procedures are completed.
The opening of the exhibition will be on October 8th, 2021, 19:00 h, at El Cubo in cecut, the awards on October 20th, 2021. The artworks will be exhibited until February 2022.
Use of personal information. By participating in this call, the authors give their authorization to the Tijuana Triennial organization to reproduce the images of the artworks and the information of their currículum vitae on the platforms they deem appropriate.
Observations. The rules and guidelines of this contest are accepted by the applicants at the time of sending their application to this call.
Any circumstance not foreseen in this call will be resolved by the organization, together with the Award Jury, as the case may be.
For more information, please contact:
infoexposiciones@cecut.gob.mx
Phone: +52 (664) 687 9652