Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires - details announced, including Cecilia Alemani as Artistic Director

Art Basel and the City of Buenos Aires are delighted to share details of the first Art Basel Cities initiative. A long-term collaboration, Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires has been set up to support the city's cultural ecosystem including artists, galleries, not-for-profit spaces and public institutions and to highlight its vibrant cultural scene, promoting it to a global audience and Art Basel's extensive network. In 2017 the partnership will focus on providing structural support to the local art community with the launch of the Art Basel Cities Exchange, comprising several initiatives to help facilitate professional collaborations, catalyze support for cultural projects, and to strengthen the local artworld. Next year in September, Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires will launch a week of public art programing directed by Cecilia Alemani, which will take place throughout the city.

To celebrate the launch of these first elements of Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires and to share further information about the partnership, Art Basel Cities will set up the Art Basel Cities House in Buenos Aires. From November 2 to November 5, 2017, the Art Basel Cities House will host a series of events and workshops and will launch a talks series to take place throughout the year, in which local cultural partners will be invited to collaborate and participate, and to learn more about the future program. Further partners will be selected in the next few years to be part of the wider Art Basel Cities initiative. In addition, Buenos Aires will welcome an international delegation of artworld professionals including collectors, curators, and directors of museums and not-for-profit spaces, discovering and engaging with the vibrant local art scene during that week.

Underlining the durational aspect of the multi-year partnership, Art Basel and the city of Buenos Aires have initiated the Art Basel Cities Exchange to help support and strengthen the local art scene on a long-term basis. As Art Basel started working closely with key stakeholders in Buenos Aires to define the city's needs, it became clear that the first elements of this collaboration should support the City of Buenos Aires' own initiatives to help develop the key structures of the city's cultural scene. While first elements of Art Basel Cities Exchange such as the Project Bureau, an internship program and crowdfunding campaigns are launching this fall, further elements will be rolled out on an ongoing basis throughout this partnership.

Over the coming months and years, the Art Basel Cities Exchange will host residencies around the world for Argentine professionals working in the arts: from internships and curatorial residencies to artist exchanges and mentorships. This November at the Art Basel Cities House, the City of Buenos Aires will host an open call for an internship program, placing young artworld professionals from Buenos Aires with leading galleries from across the world. Further information on the application process will be shared at the Art Basel Cities House this November and will then also be available online.

Further initiatives of the Art Basel Cities Exchange include the setting up of Project Bureau, a digital platform that aims to connect international art professionals with the local art scene to realize large-scale projects in Buenos Aires. From November onwards, artworld professionals will be invited to apply with either new project ideas or specific needs concerning existing projects to the Project Bureau. These will be reviewed by a committee consisting of Argentinian and international experts. Successful applicants will then be connected with potential partners in the Buenos Aires cultural landscape.

Furthermore, the Art Basel Cities Exchange will put in place a number of structures to enable organizations, individuals and institutions to catalyze support and build resources for new projects. In this context, Art Basel's Crowdfunding platform will be activated to support not-for profit institutions in Buenos Aires in realizing a wide variety of artistic projects, including exhibitions, public installations, films, artist books, education programs, artist residencies, talks programs, archives, libraries, and other innovative projects. Art Basel is now actively reaching out directly to not-for profit institutions in Buenos Aires and is guiding them through the application process, with the first crowdfunding projects from Buenos Aires launching in October. Further information on the application process can be found on artbasel.com/about/initiatives/crowdfunding.

In addition to these long-term structures, Art Basel and the city of Buenos Aires will next year launch a week of public arts programing in the city. Taking place from September 11 to September 16, 2018, the week will be directed by Cecilia Alemani, Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art in New York and the curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Over the coming months, Alemani will work closely with cultural partners in Buenos Aires on the week's program.

Finally, a newly formed advisory board – consisting of prominent artworld figures with strong ties to Buenos Aires – has been created to contribute to the further development and implementation of the partnership. Members of the board comprise: Ariel Aisiks; Pablo León de la Barra; Orly Benzacar; Gustavo Bruzzone; Ximena Caminos; Eduardo Costantini; Marlise and Anibal Jozami; Dani Levinas; Alec Oxenford; Glenn Phillips; Frances Reynolds; Adriana Rosenberg and Juan and Patricia Vergez, and from the government of the City of Buenos Aires Diego Radivoy, General Director of Creative Industries.

About Cecilia Alemani

Cecilia Alemani is the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art, the public art program presented by the non-profit organization Friends of the High Line in New York City. She is also the curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Since 2012, she has commissioned and curated public art projects on the High Line by over two hundred artists. For the Italian Pavilion, she organized the exhibition Il mondo magico, featuring new commissions by Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Roberto Cuoghi and Adelita Husni-Bey. Throughout her career, Alemani has collaborated with many museums, institutions, and foundations, and has also pursued more unconventional projects with non-profits and informal organizations, as an independent curator she has organized numerous exhibitions in museums, non-profit spaces, and galleries. Alemani worked as guest curator for the performance art biennial Performa 11. She is the co-founder of No Soul For Sale, a festival of independent spaces, non-profit organizations, and artist collectives which took place at X Initiative in June 2009 and at Tate Modern. From January 2009 to February 2010, she served as Curatorial Director of X Initiative, New York, a year-long experimental non-profit space in Chelsea.

About Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires

Since Buenos Aires was announced as the first partner of the Art Basel Cities program in September 2016, the city and Art Basel have been working closely with key stakeholders, such as government agencies and institutions in Buenos Aires to develop a partnership that responds directly to the needs and desires of the city.

Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires is therefore focused on supporting the growth and development of the local art scene. The partnership is being financed through a number of different sources, including public funding, crowdfunding private funding, and sponsoring. Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires does not draw upon existing cultural funding for the arts, but rather on additional public funding that is being made available from other governmental agencies in view of long-term economic development. For further information on Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires please visit artbasel.com/cities/buenos-aires

About Buenos Aires

With three million inhabitants working and living in the city, spreading over 203 km2, Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, profits from a very active cultural agenda with an array of world-renowned museums, public collections, theatres, libraries and exhibition spaces in the heart of the city. It boasts a very lively and vibrant art scene with more than 80 art galleries. In the last few years Buenos Aires has brought to life a development project of a new art and design district in La Boca and Barracas, which has enhanced the city and created many artistic opportunities for the local communities.

This program has the overall support of the Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires across various government departments. Among the departments involved there is the General Direction of Creative Industries that comes under the Undersecretary of Economic Development within the Ministry of Modernization, Innovation and Technology, the Tourism Board and the Ministry of Culture of Buenos Aires. Among National Government areas involved there is the Argentine Investment and Trade Promotion Agency.

About Art Basel Cities

Art Basel Cities is a new initiative that expands Art Basel's engagement in the art world from staging art fairs to working with cities to develop long-term cultural programs that share their vitality with global audiences, offering the art world new opportunities to discover and engage with cultural scenes across the world. Art Basel Cities sees Art Basel work with selected partner cities to develop partnerships and programs specific to the city, connecting them to the global artworld through Art Basel's broad network, and helping cities to develop their unique cultural landscape. For further information on Art Basel Cities, please visit artbasel.com/cities

About Art Basel

Founded in 1970 by gallerists from Basel, Art Basel today stages the world's premier art shows for Modern and contemporary art, sited in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong. Defined by its host city and region, each show is unique, which is reflected in its participating galleries, artworks presented, and the content of parallel programming produced in collaboration with local institutions for each edition.

Art Basel’s engagement has expanded beyond art fairs through a number of new initiatives. In 2014, Art Basel launched its Crowdfunding Initiative, in collaboration with Kickstarter. This initiative presents jury-selected art projects to potential benefactors, which include Art Basel’s vibrant audience and the Kickstarter community. The initiative has catalyzed much-needed support for outstanding non-commercial art projects worldwide and so far has helped pledge over $1.8 million to creative projects around the world. For Art Basel Cities, launched in 2016, Art Basel is working with selected partner cities to develop vibrant and content-driven programs specific to the individual city. Connecting them to the global art world through Art Basel's expertise and network, Art Basel Cities supports its partners to develop their unique cultural landscape.