Miami Dade College and CINTAS Foundation Announces Visual Arts Fellowship Finalists

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
new york city, New York, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) October 17, 2011 -- Miami - After reviewing nearly 100 submissions from around the world, the CINTAS Foundation has selected ten finalists in the visual arts category for its annual CINTAS Foundation Fellowship competition. They are Ivan Abreu, Harold Batista, Domingo Castillo, Ivan Depena, Coco Fusco, Jillian Mayer, Fabian Pena, Dinorah de Jesus Rodriguez, Ruben Torres Llorca, and Juana Valdez.

Miami Dade College (MDC), the new home of the world-renowned CINTAS Fellows Collection, will host an exhibition of this year’s visual arts finalists. The CINTAS Fellows Finalists Exhibition opens with an invitation-only reception at 7 p.m.Thursday, Oct. 27,at the college’s Freedom Tower. The working media is welcome. The finalists in the music and creative writing categories will be announced at the reception.

The 2011 jury for this prestigious award included: Michelle Weinberg, visual artist and creative director of the Girls’ Club in Ft. Lauderdale; Jorge Santis, curator of collections at the Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale; Maggy Cuesta, dean of Visual Arts at New World School of the Arts; Rene Morales, associate curator for the Miami Art Museum; and Velia Larcinese, executive director of The Americas Collection.

The CINTAS Fellows Finalists Exhibition will remain on display, free and open to the public, Oct. 28 through Dec. 16 during gallery hours.

About the CINTAS Foundation

The CINTAS Fellowship Program encourages creative development in architecture, literature, music composition and the visual arts. The Foundation was established with funds from the estate of Oscar B. CINTAS (1887-1957), the former Cuban ambassador to the United States, a prominent industrialist and patron of the arts. In June of 2011, the Cintas Foundation entered into an extended loan to MDC’s Art Gallery System (AGS) of the Cintas Fellows Collection, comprised of nearly 300 pieces by artists of Cuban descent living outside Cuba who have received prestigious Cintas Fellowships, awarded since 1963. The collection is comprised of gifts made by the fellows to the foundation. More than 200 artists are represented in the collection through a wide variety of media including paintings, prints, photographs, drawings, films, sculptures and installation art. The vast scope of the collection reflects the heterogeneous nature of the artistic production of Cuban artists, spanning across various generations, and their significant aesthetic and historical contribution to modern and contemporary art.

www.cintasfoundation.org

Miami Dade College

Miami Dade College has a long and rich history of involvement in the cultural arts, providing South Florida with a vast array of artistic and literary offerings including The Miami Book Fair International, the Center @ MDC, the Miami International Film Festival, the MDC Live! Performing Arts Series, the Cuban Cinema Series, the Prometeo Theatre, the Miami Leadership Roundtable speakers’ series, the Miami International Sculpture Park, a renowned art gallery system, several campus theaters, and the nationally recognized School of Entertainment and Design Technology. It is also the home of the National Historic Landmark Miami Freedom Tower.

For more information about the CINTAS program at MDC, please contact Jessica Brodsky at 305-237-7722, or jbrodsky@mdc.edu.

For more information about the exhibition, please contact MDC’s Art Gallery System at 305-237-7700.

Media-only contacts:
Juan Mendieta, 305-237-7611, jmendiet@mdc.edu, MDC communications director
Tere Estorino, 305-237-3949, testorin@mdc.edu, MDC media relations director
Sue Arrowsmith, 305-237-3710, sue.arrowsmith@mdc.edu, media specialist
Tarnell Carroll, 305-237-3359, tcarroll@mdc.edu, media specialist

Alejandro Rios, 305-237-7482, arios1@mdc.edu

arts     Coco Fusco     Domingo Castillo     Harold Batista     Ivan Abreu     Ivan Depena     Jillian Mayer     Visual Arts Fellowship