This year, the BCRA National Painting Prize called upon more than 800 plastic artists from across Argentina, who submitted their works to compete in the different categories of the XII edition. The jury responsible for selecting the 29 finalist works included Carolina Antoniadis, Diego Perrotta, Viviana Usubiaga, Francisco Lemus, and Andrea Elías, with Rodrigo Alonso serving as curator.
The selected artists are as follows:
| Full Name | Title of the Work | Year of Production |
| Ernesto Julio ALLI | Expolio (Plunder) | 2018 |
| Esteban ÁLVAREZ | Lebacs (LEBAC Bills) | 2019 |
| Carlos ARNAIZ | Sin título (Untitled) | 2019 |
| Ángeles ASCÚA | de la serie Bin Bin (From the Bin Bin Series) | 2019 |
| Julieta BARDERI | Sin título (3) (Untitled (3)) | 2019 |
| Diego BASTOS | Interior (The Inside) | 2018 |
| Elena BLASCO | Lillium Blanco (White Lilium) | 2019 |
| Delfina BOURSE | Sin título (Untitled) | 2019 |
| Verónica CALFAT | Sin título (Untitled) | 2019 |
| Roberto CORTÉS | La creación de un Mundo (The Creation of One World) | 2018 |
| Lucia DELFINO | Afuera pasan cosas que llegan hacia mí más tarde (Outside, Things Happen that Reach me Later) | 2019 |
| Verónica DI TORO | Serie cuadrículas 16 (Grids Series 16) | 2019 |
| Estanislao FLORIDO | Bañistas (Bathers) | 2018 |
| Alfredo FRÍAS | Apuntes visuales para la reconstrucción de una historia negra (Visual Notes for the Reconstruction of a Noir Story) | 2017 |
| Ana FUCHS | Deconstruccion de una orquídea (Deconstruction of an Orchid) | 2018 |
| Verónica GÓMEZ | Alajärvi | 2018 |
| Emiliano GUERRESI | La Virgen del Conurbano (The Virgin of the Suburbs) | 2018 |
| Silvia GURFEIN | El trabajo en lo echado a perder (Work on What has been Spoiled) | 2019 |
| Lucrecia LIONTI | Orden de requechos entre luciérnagas y cigarros III (Order of Shreds Between Lightning Bugs and Cigars III) | 2019 |
| Pablo LOZANO | Sin título (Untitled) | 2019 |
| Lula MARI | Perezo | 2019 |
| Daiana MARTINELLO | Franklin | 2019 |
| Eduardo MEDICI | Malos Tiempos II (Eclipse) (Bad Times II (Eclipse)) | 2019 |
| Ariel MORA | s/t (Untitled) | 2019 |
| Edgardo MURILLO | Disolución de la contemplación (Rivotril) Contemplation Dissolution (Rivotril) | 2019 |
| Jorge Horacio PIROZZI | Sin título (Untitled) | 2017 |
| Paula SENDEROWICZ | Todo lo que pesa tiene que arder (Everything That Weighs Must Burn) | 2019 |
| Mario SCORZELLI | El ideal desconocido (Retratos de liberales) (The Unknown Ideal (Portraits of Liberals)) | 2017 |
| Marcelo TORRETA | Ojos bien cerrados (Eyes Wide Shut) | 2018 |
The prizes for the winning artists are as follows:
General
First prize | ARS225,000
Second prize | ARS150,000
Third prize | ARS100,000
Artists younger than 35 years of age
First prize | ARS95,000
Second prize | ARS75,000
Third prize | ARS50,000
In this edition, the Great Prize for Distinguished Artists will be awarded to Josefina Robirosa, who has made significant contributions to the history of Argentine plastic arts and has worked over lyrical abstraction and figurative forms. Josefina Robirosa was Director of the National Fund for the Arts and member of the National Academy of Fine Arts.
All the participating works will be displayed in different locations of Argentina in 2020, thus encouraging the relationship between artists and the community and highlighting the federal spirit of this initiative. In addition, they will be exhibited at the Museum of the BCRA as from the beginning of December. On the opening day of the exhibition, jury members and authorities of the BCRA will announce and award the prizes to each category, and the special award to Josefina Robirosa.
The BCRA National Painting Award promotes Argentine contemporary art and brings the work of artists closer to the community. With this initiative, the BCRA has acquired more than 100 works for the BCRA Collection, which includes works by Clorindo Testa, Carlos Alonso, León Ferrari, Gyula Kosice, Julio Le Parc, Liliana Porter, Alejandro Puente, Luis Felipe Noé, Marcia Schvartz, Luis Tomasello and Margarita Paksa, among others. This collection, which is part of Argentina’s artistic heritage, stands for our culture and identity. More than 8,000 artists have taken part in the competition so far, and the itinerant exhibition has been in almost all the provinces of our country.
