Marking its fortieth anniversary, the seventeenth Bienal de Cuenca, titled The Sport, opened on 24 October. Its inauguration coincided with the Artwork Basel Paris honest 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 Website—the Bienal de Cuenca unfolds greater than 2,000 metres above sea degree 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. Beneath 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 rarely receives international protection. New initiatives resembling 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 power unfolds in opposition to 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 top 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, limiting 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 formidable curatorial mannequin that includes 17 outstanding 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 data and non secular 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, gained 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 number of pairs of footwear that got to me by 4 relations who died through the pandemic,” Vicente tells The Artwork Newspaper. “And from there, extra began to hitch in.” With Indigenous communities dealing with almost 4 instances the surplus dying fee of the final inhabitants through the pandemic, the artist reworked personal mourning right into a collective memorial.
Shut-up of Darwin Guerrero’s mission at Bienal de Cuenca Courtesy Bienal de Cuenca
The organisers of The Sport invited its curators to be lively individuals and think about play as a crucial device, leading to tasks that assorted extensively in tone and execution. The curators Gerardo Mosquera (from Cuba), Virginia Roy (Spain and Mexico) and Justo Pastor Mellado (Chile) delivered a number of the biennial’s strongest and most targeted displays, partaking instantly with social, political and psychological points.
Mosquera acquired the award for Greatest Curatorial Staff for his exhibition La Noche Bella no Deja Dormir (The Lovely Night time Retains Me Awake), which options works by the artists Sandra Cinto, Rember Yahuarcani and Christian Proaño. The present explores dying 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 give attention to individualism and hyperproductivity.
Whereas Mosquera’s poetic exhibition emphasises reflection, Roy approached The Sport by lively engagement, creating an area for autonomy and negotiation whereas critiquing institutional management. Roy’s presentation, lo lúdico como potencia política (play as a political drive), 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 sequence 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 elementary function,” Roy says.
Teo Monsalve’s set up at Bienal de Cuenca is a part of his ongoing Neotropical Futurism mission Courtesy Bienal de Cuenca
The theme of “taking part in useless” 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 accommodates the identical compound launched by a decomposing physique, linking the rigidity of cloistered life with the rituals of dying.
Different notable installations embrace that of the Quito-based artist Pamela Suasti, who explores methods of energy and surveillance in collaboration with the Dominican-born curator Ezequiel Taveras. Suasti acquired the Paris Prize, a three-month residency in France, for Archive of a Gesture—a mission 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 necessary”. 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 mission, seems 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 which means within the digital age, imagining change throughout the area as a continuum between the previous, current and visionary futures.
Whereas the general high quality of the work is powerful at this yr’s Bienal de Cuenca, the dearth of organisation, absence of maps and outdated web site make navigating it an precise “sport” for guests. For a lot of artists, opening weekend was a missed alternative to share their tasks with influential curators, lower quick because the 17 curators had been taken to town of Loja for a convention. A number of artists stated that, after every week of set up, that they had hoped for extra significant interactions; as an alternative, 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 to use the time for crucial dialogue.
Bienal de Cuenca: The Sport, a number of places in Cuenca, Ecuador, till 1 February 2026
