Faena Arts Center

• Name — Faena Art Center • Location — Aimé Paine 1169, Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires • Type — Arts centre • Director — Ximena Caminos • Owner — Faena Group • Public Transit — Leandro N. Alem (Buenos Aires Metro), Line B (Buenos Aires Metro)

Faena Art Center was built out of one of Argentina’s first big flour mills. In what used to be the mill’s old machine room, the main exhibition space has been rebuilt to retain the original details from the 1900s. The spacious, light-filled center, which is over 4,000 m 2, is housed by soaring ceilings, semicircular arches, bay windows and other hallmarks of turn-of-the-century industrial architecture.

Faena Art Center presents works by international artists in order to create a dialogue with the Argentinean scene, as well as offering local artists the chance to debut. The inaugural exhibition featured a monumental installation by Brazilian contemporary artist Ernesto Neto, curated by the Tate Modern’s Jessica Morgan. In May 2012, the Cuban duo Los Carpinteros debuted their first solo in Buenos Aires. In November 2012, German artist Franz Ackermann exhibited the results of his voyages around Buenos Aires with the largest mural of his career, also his first show in Buenos Aires. In the year 2018 the Faena Art Center made only one exhibition, which was open to the public only four days and without previous announcements. Currently the Faena Art Center does not offer open public exhibitions.

The 2012 Faena Prize for the Arts winner was awarded to Argentinean visual artist, Franco Dario Vico. The 2012 jury included US based Carlos Basualdo, curator of contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Paris-based Caroline Bourgeois, curator at the Artis/Francois Pinault Foundation, and Buenos Aires based curator Ines Katzenstein, director of the art department at the Torcuato Di Tella University, under the supervision of Ximena Caminos, Executive Director of the Faena Arts Center. The artist received a grant of $25,000 as well as up to $50,000 to finance the production of a site-specific project exhibited at the Faena Arts Center in 2013.

The 2015 winner of the Prize is Los Angeles-based artist Cayetano Ferrer who was awarded $75,000 in total. $50,000 is for production of his proposed site-specific work for the Sala Molinos exhibition space in the Faena Art Center.