10 Things Not To Miss at Ch.ACO’s 10-Year Anniversary

This year, Ch.ACO is celebrating its tenth anniversary during the entire month of November, with different public art initiatives that will take art to key areas within the city. The Ch.ACO Fair, the event that culminates the month dedicated to visual arts, will take place from November 22nd through the 26th at Parque Arboleda Lo Curro (Vía Aurora 9255, Vitacura). Here is a list of this anniversary edition’s essentials.

1) Inside Out Santiago

During the entire month of November, Ch.ACO, along with Santiago’s Intendancy, CORE and GORE, will implement the project Inside Out, by the French artist JR, in four different areas of Santiago: Melipilla, Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Vitacura, and downtown Santiago.

This urban art intervention is conceived as an interactive initiative made by and for the general public. Its primary focus is to render an account of people and their realities. In each of the countries where this project has been carried out –so far, the number of countries is over 120— the process has been organized in two stages: the first consists in taking photographs of the people, and the second in installing these portraits in large-scale formats, in public spaces in the four areas mentioned previously. Next installation will be in Persa Víctor Manuel starting Thursday the 22nd.

2) FAVA Art Gala

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, this time around, the Art Gala organized by the FAVA Foundation will honor its artists. They are the protagonists of this traditional philanthropic event, which kicks off the Fair and whose objective is to raise funds for acquiring a work of art by a Chilean artist and donating it to a renowned institution. This year, the chosen piece will go to the Phoenix Art Museum.

Wednesday, November 21st at 9 PM. Prior registration at [email protected]

3) FAVA / PazCorp in Fair Forums

This year, the main focus of the Conversation Program, organized by the FAVA Foundation in collaboration with PazCorp and set to take place at the Fair’s venue itself, is to be a platform for visibility and interaction amongst the artists participating in the tenth version of Ch.ACO, as well as for bringing people closer to public art, a globally relevant subject that Ch.ACO seeks to develop and foster. For this purpose, national and international artists have been invited, as well as specialists in public art and directors of cultural institutions, including Cher Knight, an Emerson College academic and specialist in public art, who will speak with Ignacio Szmulewicz on November 25th at 6 PM; Claudia Hakim, director of MAMBo, who will speak with Gilbert Vicario, head curator of the Phoenix Art Museum and Claudia Zaldívar, director of the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, on November 23rd at 6 PM.

4) Fair Exhibitors

This anniversary edition will bring together over 60 exhibitors from 15 different countries, including galleries from Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, France, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and China.

As in the past two years, the Fair is divided into four sections, three of which are curated. Planta is curated by Carolina Castro and Matías Allende; Focus is curated by Cecilia Fajardo-Hill; and Nave de Ediciones is curated by Camila Opazo. Between the four of them, over 300 Chilean and international artists will be presenting their work

5) Book Launch: Blue Pieces, by Jerry B. Martin

In unprecedented fashion, this year, the Nave de Ediciones held an open contest along with Ograma, a printing company, in order to give a publishing house from any part of the world the opportunity of putting out a publication in co-production with the Fair. Out of the over 80 publishing houses that participated, Meier Ramírez, Andrés Marroquín’s Peruvian publishing house, was selected with its project: a book by the artist Jerry B. Martin, Blue Pieces, which will be launched in the framework of Ch.ACO Fair.

6) Lagos Residency Award in the Planta Section

For the first time, the Lagos/Ch.ACO Residency will be presented this year, giving an artist from the Planta Section –the section dedicated to Latin American independently managed spaces— the possibility of carrying out a two-month residence at Lagos, a space for study, production, and reflection in Mexico City.

7) FAVA Award

Every two years, the FAVA Award recognizes the visual artists who have particularly enriched the country’s cultural baggage and imagery during the past year, developing a professional work within the national visual arts system and connecting with international contexts. For its third edition, the selected artist is Sebastián Calfuqueo, a visual artist with Mapuche roots. His award will be presented during the Fair.

8) Ca.SA Award

As is become customary, for the third year in a row, the Ca.Sa Foundation, founded by the renowned art collectors and philanthropists Ramón Sauma and Gabriel Carvajal, will present the Ca.Sa Award to an artist from the Planta section.

9) FAVA VA! Mediation Program in Vitacura with Santander

This year, the “FAVA VA!” Program consists in installing the FAVA Collection at Vitacura’s Colegio Antártica Chilena in an exhibition format. MYRE Educación educators will train a group of 30 students from ninth and tenth grades with a two-day workshop, aimed at conveying knowledge of contemporary art and the pieces that make up the collection, so that they can become exhibition guides for one week. ON this occasion, the guide-students will offer Colegio Antártica Chilena students, teachers, and parents guided visits on November 15th, 16th and 17th. On November 19th and 20th, the activity will be offered to visitors from other municipal schools; on the 21st, to groups of senior citizens; and on the 22nd, visits will be held for Ch.ACO’s VIP Program participants, guided by both the students and Mexican curator Pablo León de la Barra.

10) Ch.ACO en la Calle

Organized together with Vitacura’s Corporación Cultural, Ch.ACO en la Calle –a circuit of site-specific art interventions— activates stores, galleries and restaurants with the objective of working collectively during the entire month of November, along the central axes of Parque Bicentenario and Alonso de Córdova street. For this second edition, in addition to ephemeral art interventions, Ch.ACO on the Street will also include three collective exhibitions: “Hermandad”, curated by Carolina Castro and Matías Allende; “Hecho en Chile”, curated by Gt2p; and “Festín de Arte”, curated by Isabel Croxatto and Hugo Grisanti.