- This latest call attracted more than 400 applications, submitted by artists from forty-two different countries. The seven beneficiaries will present their creations in Itinerarios XXIX, a show that will be one of the highlights of the 2024 exhibitions calendar of the Centro Botín in Santander.
- To date more than 200 artists have benefitted from this major sponsorship programme, created by the Fundación Botín in 1993 with the aim of supporting artists, both in their training and in the further development of their artistic research projects.
Six grants awarded to seven artists of four different nationalities (four Spanish, one Argentinian, one Portuguese and one Chilean) as the beneficiaries of the 29th annual iteration of the Visual Arts Grants of the Fundación Botín. The new beneficiaries will show their artistic projects in the exhibition Itinerarios XXIX, as part of the artistic programme of the Centro Botín for the year 2024.
The selected artists are: Alice Correia Lourenço dos Reis (Lisboa, Portugal, 1995); Patricia Domínguez (Santiago de Chile, 1984); María Salgado (Madrid, 1984) and Clarisa Navas (Corrientes, Argentina, 1989); Antonio Menchen (Toledo, 1983); Belen Rodríguez González (Valladolid, 1981); and Laura Fernández Antolín (Valladolid, 1993). This last artist has been awarded the special grant to assist Spanish artists under 30 years of age to travelling and work abroad.
The curators Aimar Arriola and Soledad Gutiérrez and the artists and former Fundación Botín Visual Arts grantees Joâo Onofre and Eva Fábregas were the members of the jury responsible for assessing the 402 applications from 42 different countries, a figure which testifies to the international spirit of these grants and consolidates the programme as a space for accommodating the kind of ambitious proposals that enable artists to strike out in new directions.
This resolution is characterised by the diversity of the award-winning practices, ranging from the performative to the contemporary reinvention of the more traditional techniques and media. From the attention to the subtleties of fine manual work in the proposals of Belén Rodríguez González and Antonio Menchen to the most cosmic scope in the videos of Patricia Domínguez and Alice Correia Lourenço dos Reis, while the project undertaken by María Salgado together with the filmmaker Clarisa Navas intertwines language and image to connect people and places that relate through their biographies. Last but not least, Laura Fernández Antolín’s proposal will explore new ways of engaging with materiality from paganism.
Since these grants were launched in 1993, they have provided opportunities to more than 200 artists, acting as a dynamic stimulus to contemporary art and becoming an invaluable support to creative talents with an artistic research project to develop. With this latest annual initiative, the Fundación Botín once again manifests its firm commitment to supporting art. The Visual Arts Grants are open to artists of any nationality and that have a duration of nine months, with an endowment of 23,000 euros each. In addition, these grants themselves are complemented with the participation of the artists in the annual exhibition Itinerarios, which, with its accompanying catalogue, provides the creators and their projects with greater visibility.
For more information: www.fundacionbotin.org and www.centrobotin.org/becas, under the heading ‘Formación’.
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