Sculptural Pinatas Named Winner of ArtPrize Pitch Night in Minneapolis

ArtPrize Pitch Night opened its third year last night in Minneapolis. The program awards artists from outside of Michigan with $5,000 and a prominent place to display their art at ArtPrize.

A work featuring sculptural piñatas, "Constructing on Deconstructing" by Carolina Borja and Amy Toscani, was named the winner at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

The Minnesota-based artists will install their sculptural piñatas across half of the open space on the second floor at 250 Monroe. The work combines Borja's work with customs and traditions and Toscani's large-scale works about the meeting of cultures between Mexico and the U.S.

“I’m really excited because the project didn’t finish tonight. It’s actually going to happen,” commented Borja. “I had a seed, and now I’m planting it -- it’ll grow and cultivate. ArtPrize visitors will play a really important role in the life of the project this fall, by breaking the piñatas open and releasing the contents to form a second installation.”

Borja and Toscani were selected from among five artists who were invited to present their ideas to a panel of five judges and a live audience.

Each artist was given five minutes and five slides to sell their idea to the panel of local arts professionals, including Joan Vorderbruggen, Cultural District Arts Coordinator for the Hennepin Theatre Trust; Christina Chang, Curator of Engagement at the Minnesota Museum of American Art; Fionn Meade, Artistic Director at the Walker Art Center; Nate Young, Artist and Co-Founder of The Bindery Projects; and Jehra Patrick, Program Director, Mn Artists and Visual Artist and Curator of the Waiting Room Gallery.

"The jury appreciated the sculptural, interactive and documentary aspects of this project. We were also pleased to see this collaboration and its possibilities for material and cultural intersections,” noted Patrick.

ArtPrize 2015 runs September 23 - October 11.