Page 346 - Arte e Historia

Danilo De los Santos

precedent in the process of the aforementioned decades,
during which it is also generated the rise of bibliographic
catalogs, monographs and history of arts and artists. In
addition, in the Dominican map one can clearly notice
several local places with art tradition: Bonao, La Vega,
Jarabacoa, Santiago, Puerto Plata, San Cristóbal, Moca,
La Romana, San Juan de la Maguana, San Francisco de
Macorís and San Pedro de Macorís, celebrating the cen-
tenary of its foundation with various events, including a
painting contest.

The return of the national biennial ordered by Presi-
dent Guzmán and its new exhibition ground, the Gal-
lery of Modern Art, accomplishes three editions between
1979 and1984, with the inclusion of new competitive
categories (photography, printmaking…). Since 1981, the
restored E. León Jimenes contest shows steady progress,
becoming a biennial competition which holds ten new
editions until 2000. With the fluctuations caused by gov-
ernmental changes and the dependence on presidential
decrees, the national biennial records five editions be-
tween 1990 and 1999, transforming its content, since its
name change (Biennial of Visual Arts) to the organization
of their bases, increasing from five to nine categories. A
new event is added to the aforementioned: the Drawing
Hall, established by gallery owner Mildred Canahuate
while directing the Arawak Foundation. With several ex-
hibitions between 1991 and 1993, the show became an
international event since 1995. If the founding objective
was to promote and recognize drawing’s autonomous di-
mension, the goal was to achieve it with the installation
of a specialized museum.

All competitions granted awards to recognized cre-
ators (Bidó, De Pellerano, Cestero, Richiez Martínez, Hi-
lario Rodríguez, Rosa Tavárez…), almost all the awards
recognize many names of the new generation of the 80s
and 90s, as Hilario Olivo, Tony Capellán, Jesús Desan-
gles, Jorge Pineda, Raquel Paiewonsky, Maritza Álvarez
and, among others, Raúl Recio. Some of them are deserv-
ing of the awards given in the First and Second Biennial

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