Dialogues: Women Artists in the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection (Diálogos. Artistas mujeres en la Colección Ella Fontanals-Cisneros), a journey through the work of some of the most relevant creators in the history of modern and contemporary art, drawn from one of the world’s most important private collections.

This exhibition offers an opportunity to examine and reclaim the role of women in recent art history, highlighting their often-overlooked contributions to artistic practice: fields where male artists have traditionally received greater recognition. The curatorial work is led by Taiyana Pimentel, Director of MARCO, and Sergio Fontanella, Director of Operations and Collections at the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO).

Born in Cuba and based in Miami, Ella Fontanals-Cisneros is one of today’s most significant art collectors. As a businesswoman from a young age, she enrolled in the art business in Venezuela around her twenties, when she opened her first art gallery and began her collection in the 1970s. Today, her artistic endeavours represent around 2,700 works, with a strong focus on modern and contemporary art and a significant representation of Latin American artists.

Driven by her vision as a patron and international collector, Fontanals-Cisneros founded the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in 2002, an organization dedicated to the promotion of contemporary art through grants and other initiatives. However, this exhibition centers on her personal collection—not the works held by CIFO.

The exhibition explores an unexamined theme, which hadn’t been explored before within the collection: the forthright presence of women artists in avant-garde movements from the mid-20th century to the present. The selection of artworks includes iconic figures such as Marina Abramović, Lygia Clark, Ana Mendieta, Barbara Kruger, among others, whose groundbreaking work has significantly shaped contemporary artistic statements. In total, 160 works by 71 artists from 23 countries are showcased, encompassing different media such as painting, photography, video, installation, performance documentation, drawing, and sculpture.

This exhibition is based on a dialogue between a collector and a group of artists  from diverse artistic practices, periods, and geographies; it aims to reveal previously unseen connections by rewriting the traditional narrative of art from an inclusive perspective. 

Fontanals-Cisneros, who was originally from Cuba, developed a professional career in Venezuela that shaped his collecting. The 1970s and the international impact of the Venezuelan kinetic movement marked the institutional beginning of this collection, which, over time, expanded to include other critical positions in Latin American and global art. 

Dialogues is structured mainly around three conceptual axes. First, it addresses the analysis of abstract, geometric, optical-kinetic, and neo-concrete positions in the transition from modernity to contemporaneity. Subsequently, the exhibition shifts its focus to those artists whose discursive approach is related to social transgression, the definition of political positions, and environmental and ecological awareness. Finally, it focuses on the female body as a means of expression and political territory. 

Women Artists in the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection challenges linear historiographical notions, positioning itself in relation to the alternating exercise inherent in collecting, while drawing on one of the curatorial positions of the 21st century: the investigation of women artists not addressed in Western art history.