Cuernavaca is presenting its first Painting Biennial at the Museo Morelense de Arte Contemporáneo Juan Soriano (MMAC), featuring 40 works by 37 Morelos-based artists selected from 380 submissions. The exhibition is open to the public through September 20, 2026, and takes as its starting point a deceptively simple question: what counts as painting today.
The biennial is a joint initiative of the MMAC and the Fundación Griselda Hurtado, founded by a local restaurateur who has been collecting art for 18 years and seeks to strengthen the local scene. The museum, inaugurated in 2018 with the donation of 3,000 works by Juan Soriano, is cementing its role as a hub for artistic creation and circulation outside Mexico City. La Jornada Morelos reports that the project aims to bolster contemporary pictorial production and critical thinking within the local scene.
Curation was handled by Cisco Jiménez, who describes the selection as a "mirror of the activity, creativity and aspirations" of the city. Fabiola Valdés, the MMAC's subdirector of research, explained that the statewide open call received 380 submissions and that the exhibition brings together "all the possibilities of painting happening in Morelos." The jury awarded three cash prizes of 50,000, 30,000, and 20,000 pesos, according to La Jornada Morelos. According to El Universal, the three winners:
- Pamela Zubillega, first place, with "Arturo," a banner made of amate paper, acrylic, and costume jewelry.
- Manolo Garibay, second place, for his paintings dedicated to Martín Cortés in Cuauhnáhuac.
- Alonso Galera, third place, with "La Ciudad de los espejos," a stretcher frame covered in Venetian mosaic.
Beyond the prize winners, the exhibition includes work by artists born or based in Morelos, among them John Spencer, Magali Lara, and Aurora Pellizzi. The three winners' works will join the museum's permanent collection, and the first-place winner will receive a solo exhibition at Galería Epifanía. The show, originally scheduled to close on September 6, was extended through September 20 in response to strong public interest.
This article was written with artificial intelligence assistance, based on verified sources, and reviewed by a human editor before publication.