Marking its fortieth anniversary, the seventeenth Bienal de Cuenca, titled The Sport, opened on 24 October. Its inauguration coincided with the Artwork Basel Paris truthful on the opposite aspect of the Atlantic, however the biennial presents a well timed counterpoint. Particularly, it highlights artists and curators from the International South, foregrounding the area’s social and political considerations over market priorities.
Set in Cuenca—one in every of Ecuador’s largest cities, whose centre is a Unesco World Heritage Web site—the Bienal de Cuenca unfolds greater than 2,000 metres above sea stage amid the El Cajas mountain vary. Established in 1987, the biennial stays the nation’s main worldwide artwork occasion. It’s funded by the municipality of Cuenca, which allocates $500,000 per version, a couple of third of which covers operations and workers.
In 2023, town’s mayor appointed Hernán Pacurucu as govt director of the Cuenca Biennial Basis. Underneath his management, initiatives such because the Open Doorways programme and Artwork Kiosk have expanded public entry, circulating artwork nationwide and providing instructional actions for youngsters and faculty teams.
Ecuador has a dynamic cultural panorama, however its contemporary-art scene stays largely unknown internationally and infrequently receives international protection. New initiatives corresponding to Guayaquil’s forthcoming Eacheve Basis museum (opening in autumn 2026) and Quito Design Week are starting to lift its profile past the area.
But this renewed cultural vitality unfolds towards a backdrop of political volatility. The Bienal de Cuenca arrived this yr on the heels of the most recent political rebellion by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, which was triggered by the tip of diesel subsidies and the federal government’s extractive agenda. In response to the unrest, president Daniel Noboa imposed a state of emergency in a number of provinces, proscribing public gatherings and motion. The protests ended on 22 October, simply two days earlier than the biennial’s inauguration.
Carmen Vicente’s Infinite Steps Courtesy Bienal de Cuenca
Regardless of the tense nationwide local weather, the Bienal de Cuenca kicked off with an bold curatorial mannequin that includes 17 distinguished worldwide curators. Every curator chosen three artists—not less than one in every of whom hails from Ecuador. Works by 51 artists are displayed throughout a number of venues, together with museums, gardens, the airport, colonial convents and municipal galleries.
As political tensions subsided, the biennial opened with a ceremony that underscored the occasion’s dedication to Indigenous information and religious reflection. The Chacruna providing, an Andean ritual honouring Pachamama (Mom Earth), was led by the Ecuadorian artist and curandera (medication lady) Carmen Vicente. Her set up, curated by Amy Rosenblum Martín, received this yr’s acquisition prize.
Vicente’s Infinite Steps is a deeply private set up that confronts the devastation wrought by Covid-19 in Ecuador, one of many earliest epicentres of the pandemic in Latin America. The solemn work is comprised of strolling sticks mounted on stone bases, every anchored by a single shoe. The handles are wrapped with multicoloured, doll-like collectible figurines affixed to metallic spoons, forming a silent procession of human figures.
“I began with a couple of pairs of sneakers that got to me by 4 members of the family who died through the pandemic,” Vicente tells The Artwork Newspaper. “And from there, extra began to hitch in.” With Indigenous communities going through practically 4 instances the surplus demise charge of the final inhabitants through the pandemic, the artist reworked personal mourning right into a collective memorial.
Shut-up of Darwin Guerrero’s challenge at Bienal de Cuenca Courtesy Bienal de Cuenca
The organisers of The Sport invited its curators to be energetic members and think about play as a crucial instrument, leading to initiatives that various broadly in tone and execution. The curators Gerardo Mosquera (from Cuba), Virginia Roy (Spain and Mexico) and Justo Pastor Mellado (Chile) delivered a few of the biennial’s strongest and most targeted displays, participating instantly with social, political and psychological points.
Mosquera obtained the award for Greatest Curatorial Workforce for his exhibition La Noche Bella no Deja Dormir (The Stunning Night time Retains Me Awake), which options works by the artists Sandra Cinto, Rember Yahuarcani and Christian Proaño. The present explores demise and the night time as websites of reflection and revelation by large-scale portray, sound and literature. The presentation honours the Cuban nationwide hero and author José Martí whereas reasserting human connection over capitalism’s deal with individualism and hyperproductivity.
Whereas Mosquera’s poetic exhibition emphasises reflection, Roy approached The Sport by energetic engagement, creating an area for autonomy and negotiation whereas critiquing institutional management. Roy’s presentation, lo lúdico como potencia política (play as a political power), invitations viewers to navigate a painstakingly made labyrinth of 26,000 resin-cast crabs constructed by the Ecuadorian artist Darwin Guerrero.
Additionally featured is a video by the Belgian artist Francis Alÿs, filmed in Ecuador’s Selva Alegre as a part of his long-running exploration of youngsters’s video games, and a collection of charcoal drawings embroidered in silver thread by the Argentine artist Ana Gallardo with phrases written by sicarios (youngster assassins). “In a darkish time when neoliberal hegemony is stalking the world and limiting areas for negotiation and creation, artwork can—and does—play a basic function,” Roy says.
Teo Monsalve’s set up at Bienal de Cuenca is a part of his ongoing Neotropical Futurism challenge Courtesy Bienal de Cuenca
The theme of “taking part in lifeless” is explored by the curator Justo Pastor Mellado and the artists Manuela Ribadeneira, Oswaldo Ruiz and Francisca Aninat in a presentation on the Sixteenth-century Convento de las Conceptas. The London-based Ribadeneira guides the viewer by a sequence of areas: a monastic cell, a walled backyard and, lastly, a mausoleum—encapsulating the concept of thresholds and liminal states of consciousness. Beneath their associations with purity and transcendence, the scent of backyard lilies comprises the identical compound launched by a decomposing physique, linking the rigidity of cloistered life with the rituals of demise.
Different notable installations embody that of the Quito-based artist Pamela Suasti, who explores programs of energy and surveillance in collaboration with the Dominican-born curator Ezequiel Taveras. Suasti obtained the Paris Prize, a three-month residency in France, for Archive of a Gesture—a challenge that comes with salvaged workplace paperwork the artist describes as “discarded materials, a file, one thing official, printed, saved for years in bins and bins, later deserted and rendered out of date, although as soon as so vital”. By hand-moulding crumpled paperwork with a closed fist, Suasti transforms bureaucratic waste right into a tactile archive of defiance and resistance.
In distinction, the Ecuadorian artist Teo Monsalve and the Colombian curator Santiago Rueda look outward, adopting a futuristic science-fiction lens to discover mestizaje (cultural hybridity) throughout time. Monsalve’s multi-layered set up, a part of his ongoing Neotropical Futurism challenge, seems to be on the shared mythology and ecology linking cultures from Mexico to the southern Amazon. Utilizing regionally sourced copper, Monsalve exhibits how conventional supplies and symbols retain that means within the digital age, imagining alternate throughout the area as a continuum between the previous, current and visionary futures.
Whereas the general high quality of the work is robust at this yr’s Bienal de Cuenca, the dearth of organisation, absence of maps and outdated web site make navigating it an precise “recreation” for guests. For a lot of artists, opening weekend was a missed alternative to share their initiatives with influential curators, minimize quick because the 17 curators had been taken to town of Loja for a convention. A number of artists mentioned that, after every week of set up, they’d hoped for extra significant interactions; as a substitute, the curators scarcely had time to see accomplished works in situ. Hopefully within the subsequent version each artists and attendees on the opening will be capable of use the time for crucial dialogue.
Bienal de Cuenca: The Sport, a number of areas in Cuenca, Ecuador, till 1 February 2026
