NEW YORK, NY.- Fifty carefully selected galleries will set the pace for the modern and contemporary Latin American art market in New York, during the celebration of PINTA, the annual Latin American art fair, which is slated for November 19 to 22, 2009 at the Metropolitan Pavilion y B. Altman Building, in Chelsea, New York.

This third PINTA show offers a rich panorama of the history and evolution in modern Latin American art. Prominent works by the following artists will be exhibited:

Víctor Grippo, Django Hernández, Doris Salcedo, Luis Camnitzer, Regina Silveira, Nicola Costantino, Roberto Jacoby, Henrique Oliveira, Pablo Vargas Lugo, Arthur Lescher, Eduardo Costa, León Ferrari, César Paternosto, Elías Crispín, Marta Chilindrón, Darío Escobar, Sandra Bermúdez, Graciela Sacco, Pepe López, Valeska Soares, María Fernanda Cardozo, José Gabriel Fernández, Magdalena Fernández, Luis Lizardo, Luis Roldán, Alessandro Balteo, Mauro Giacone, Ernesto Pujol, Alexandre Arrechea, Cao Guimarães, Luiz Hermano, Antonio Manuel, Sebastião Salgado, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Juan Irribaren, Liliana Porter, Teresa Margolles, Leandro Katz, David Lamelas, Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark, Sergio Camargo, Carmelo Arden Quin, Joaquín Torres García, Augusto Torres, Caetano de Almeida, Gego, Mira Schendel, Carmen Herrera, Hélio Oiticica, Vik Muniz, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Jesús Soto, Julio Le Parc, José Da Costa, María Freire

2009 will be the third year for the already established PINTA Museum Acquisitions Program, which invites institutions committed to Latin American art. This program has been created with the aim of incentivating the art market and enhancing museum collections, and guarantees funds to selected museums to acquire works at PINTA. The new invited institutions include: Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Museum of Fine Arts and Harvard Art Museum (Boston,) Tate Modern Art Gallery (London,) El Museo del Barrio (New York,) Pinacoteca do Estado Museu de São Paulo de Arte Contemporânea (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico D.F.). Furthermore, museums that have participated in previous editions of the program are expected to visit the fair, such as the Museum of Modern Art (New York,) Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, Texas,) Museo de Arte Latinoamericano (Buenos Aires) and Museo de Arte de Lima (Peru).

Galleries from the United Status, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Cuba and Spain will be included in the selected group at PINTA 2009.

Diego Costa Peuser, Director of PINTA, remarks that “in spite of the very difficult year we have had to face, I can state that the Fair will feature excellent artistic proposals in its 2009 edition, since it will include the participation of new international galleries. This will allow us to maintain and enhance the quality of PINTA, which is the main objective of the Fair, in such a way that both collectors and the public at large may have the chance to continue discovering our artists.”

PINTA’s public launch on November 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Americas Society, features Guatemala-based artist Darío Escobar, followed by a curator talk given by Sandra Antelo-Suárez, who will expound on Darío Escobar unique compositions.

The official opening reception for PINTA is November 19 at 7 p.m. Invited guests will be greeted by the Honorary Committee, led by Estrellita Brodsky, who will be accompanied by Tony Bechara and Yolanda Santos Garza, both of whom are respected philanthropists and have leadership positions at distinguished New York institutions.

Thanks to public support and private philanthropy, the PINTA Research Fund at New York University will continue to fund scholarships for advanced studies in the field of Latin American art history, with the goal of ensuring a new generation of researchers. Recipients have conducted research or investigations into: conceptual art in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro; conceptual strategists from Brazil and Argentina, circa 1960; abstract geometry in artwork by Colombians Ramírez Villamizar and Edgar Negret; painting in the era before and after the Castro Revolution of 1959, plus artists working in Chile, Venezuela and Mexico during the 1960s and 1970s.

Mauro Herlitzka, Pinta Institutional Director states, "...the creation of Pinta Acquisitions Funds Program has driven several institutions to add to their collections important Latin American artworks, by artists such as Joaquín Torres García, Antonio Manuel, Alexander Arrechea, Arthur Luiz Piza, Fernando Bryce, Gego, Liliana Porter or Elías Crespín..."

PINTA keeps growing, and it will have its European edition next June, 2010, in London. “In fact –acknowledges Alejandro Zaia, PINTA chairman–, our ultimate goal is to take the Latin American art to the most knowledgeable and demanding markets. In that sense, after settling down in New York, London is the natural path to place our artists in front of European collectors and public eyes.”