members of the jury:
Dan Cameron, director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art

Eleanor Heartney is a New York based art writer and cultural critic. She is Contributing Editor to Art in America and Artpress and has written extensively on contemporary art issues for such other magazines as Artnews,Art and Auction, The New Art Examiner,the Washington Post and the New York Times. A collection of Heartney’s essays was published in 1997 by Cambridge University Press under the title “Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads”. Her “Movements in Modern Art: Postmodernism” was published in 2001 by the Tate Gallery Publishers. Her latest book, “Postmodern Heretics: The Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art” has just been published by Midmarch Arts Press. She is currently Co-President of AICA-USA, the American section of the International Art Critics Association.

Donna Cameron is the author of an extensive body of work which includes oil paintings, watercolors, photos; films, videos and CD-roms, and has been an exhibiting visual artist since 1970. Her hand  painted paper emulsion films have been archived and collected by the Museum of Modern Art, NY Dept. of Film & Media since 1990. Her current installation work explores digital media. Cameron is the 1998-1999 Elodie Osborne Fellow of Film & Video, and has been awarded three MacDowell fellowships and two Jerome fellowships for her image work in painting & drawing on film. Her work is distributed by the MoMA Circulating Film & Video Library, which is THE library used by film scholars worldwide, and is included in collections at NYU; Anthology Film Archives; Pacific Film Archive; The Donnell Library, and Fordham University. She was included in the MoMA's 20th century retrospective of visual art, "MoMA 2000, Making Choices, Part 2" in June, 2000, and the 20th century retrospective on women in film, The Color of Ritual, The Color of Thought: Women in Avante-Garde Film in America", 1944-2000, at The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, in September, 2000.  She is included in the 2004 Marquis" Who's Who of American Women.

Michele Thursz is an independent curator and consultant for art-makers and distributors. Her current project is Post Media Network; Post Media is a term and action demonstrating the continuous evolution uses of media and it effect on artists practice, and culture –at- large. In 1999 she co-founded and directed Moving Image Gallery, NYC. Moving image gallery was said to be one of the first galleries to show electronic and computer based mediums Exhibiting such artist as Golan Levin, Cory Arcangel, Yael Kanerek. Her recent curatorial projects include “Copy it, Steal it, Share it”, Borusan Gallery, Istanbul, and “Nown”, Wood Street Gallery, Pittsburgh. Upcoming exhibitions include “public.exe: Public Excution”, Exit Art, NYC, and “Democracy is Fun”, White Box, NYC. She has written about contemporary art for catalogue essays and has lectured on contemporary art and curatorial practice. Michele Thursz actions and exhibits have been reviewed and featured in the New York Times, Forbes Best of the Web, ArtByte, Wired News, Art Forum, and many international periodicals and web publications.

Pablo Helguera ha escrito critica y resenas para varias publicaciones, incluyendo Art Nexus, The Art Newspaper, Centrodearte.com, Tema Celeste, ARCOnoticias, etc. y publicaciones del museo Guggenheim en Nueva York y Bilbao. Como profesional de museo, ha trabajado en el Art Institute de Chicago, Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum , Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), y actualmente en el Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum de Nueva York, donde dirige la programacion publica/ educativa de la institucion. En mas de una decada de trabajo en museos, Helguera ha desarrollado y/o organizado mas de 500 programas educativos y ha trabajado personalmentecon muchos de los principales artistas vivos del siglo veinte, desde Vito Acconci hasta Bill Viola. Helguera sirve en la mesa directiva de varias instituciones como el Snug Harbor Contemporary Arts Center de Staten Island, Whitebox Alternative space en Chelsea, y es miembro del Diversity Committee del International Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA). Fue seleccionado este ano como jurado del quinto certamen nacional de artes visuales del museo de arte contemporaneo de Puerto Rico.

Winners by majority of jury votes :

Suarez-Chamorro (Spain)
jury comments:
"Drawing the relationship between gender, iconic religion character,
vocations, and class-ism through the historical and cultural paradigms which illustrates a contemporary narrative allowing accesses for the public or viewer to engage in one or the multitude of meaning set forth in the situation of the piece."
"This collage reflects, to my own Latin eye, a true rendering of the broken heritage of Latin America- the Queen Mother (bee) imbedded in a sad cathedral of fractured odds and ends of materials of various origin and texture. The Spanish style dress and wood frame's arched fragment speak of a donned femininity, a desperate attempt to raise the indigenous mother culture. It's important to remember the displacement of ancestral religious heritage by war and conquest, and this image speaks powerfully of genocide by whites and the embrace of hope by the indigenous native, despite a tragic cultural history."

Dennis Nona (Australia)
jury comments:

DENNIS NONA explores the etching print translating folklore in relevance to contemporary experiences. Through the use of collaboration making parallels to very relative in contemporary art practice mimics use of theatrical/mass media production models also inspires one to think of the definition folklore today, and the role of truths in the new electronic/ digital society today how is this effecting the artist practice. How does identity hold true in ones culture".

wiWinner by majority of votes by the public:

Lopes Garcia (Brazil)

Honorable mention (2 jury votes out of 5):

Dorothy Krakauer
jury comments:
A symbolic and original rendering of human interiority in color and form. With a lyrical approach the picture demonstrates the force of nature, the realities of decay and the hope for survival .

rISABEL ECHEVARRIA ROCHA
jury comments:
Through traditional media she exposes a way of life giving access to someone's personal journey. Highlighting how culture and position effect identity and experience through gesture she insights curiosity of the experience through the character/ subject matter and the artist eye.

Eduardo Pla
jury comments:
This installation presents the viewer with festive cultural objects reformed and recontextualized. They are uniquely designed and colored. They reflect a Latin geometry of landscape, yet are displaced in a world globe connotation. The forms hover in an ominous way and are a stunning blend of Op geometrics, Art Povera en plastique and folk art assemblage.

Paul Cabezas
jury comments:
This artist makes universal statement employing personal feeling, thought and experience. He uses a technique and a palette which uniquely reflect his own culture specifically and humanity in general. Bold Latin color and form breaks through the Internet, the "current lingua franca" of the art world. There is a complete disrespect for traditional European 3-point perspective, and through the iconography of the forms one "reads" the picture.

Honorable mention (one jury vote out of 5):

Carole Bell
Lopes Garcia
Maritza Flores
Diana Lynch
Reuben Valvidia
Inaki Rocha Echevarria
Samantha Keely- Smith
Lori Vynalek
Carlos Oropeza

Award coordinator: Paul Cabezas
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