BROKEN IDOLS
06.07 – 20.07.19
Curated by Rolando J. Carmona
Nayari Castillo, Radamès Juni Figueroa, Kenny Dunkan, Pepe López, Carlos Martiel, Nadín Ospina, Oscar Abraham Pabón, Nelson Pernisco, Emmanuel Rivière, Paul Souviron.
(more info here)
Maëlle Galerie | 1-3 rue Ramponeau 75020 Paris FR
Dark Corner
Performance of Carlos Martiel as part of Zero Gravity International Performance Art Festival at Latitude 53.
18 May, 2019
8pm -11pm
(more info here)
Latitude 53 | 10242 106 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 0J2, Canada.
by Will Furtado for Contemporary And (C&)
From the outset, the 13th Havana Biennial – the Construction of the Possible – was haunted by the specter of a new law aimed at controlling artistic production. During the course of the event, many incidents of censorship took place. Ibrahim Ahmed and Carlos Martiel – two artists who had their work censored and even destroyed – speak to C& about their experiences
(…) Carlos Martiel is another artist at the biennial whose work was censored. In his durational performance La sangre de Caín (Caín’s blood), the Cuban artist stands inside of a circular metal structure with threads dipped in the blood of artists (including his own) who are openly against the Decree 349. “In the initial project, I told them I was planning to use the blood of people who are marginalized in Cuba,” Martiel tells me. “And they never asked me for any other details.”
Once the curators found out the full motivation behind the piece, they suspended all support to the artist who had to install the piece by himself for five hours in the sun. Martiel did manage to stage the performance but on the following day he was asked to meet the Vice Minister of Culture Fernando Rojas, and shortly after the installation and the label of his work were removed and destroyed.
During their meeting, the Vice Minister explained that during the performance people were heard shouting anti-Decree 349 slogans, something that did not actually occur. He then concluded that Martiel’s work did not make any sense because the decree was not in effect. However, law implementation aside, Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was arrested multiple times in April in connection with his performance in which he and two other persons wore US flags as capes. Coco Fusco, who has written about the incident concerning Martiel, was denied entrance to the country for presumably criticizing the same law.
Despite positioning itself as a platform for justice and equality, the Havana Biennial is failing to keep its promise by exercising intimidation and censorship. Yet, these tactics can only harm the institution itself, as local and international artists and press refuse to ignore institutional abuse (…)
(more info here)
by Federica Bueti for Ocula
(…) One of the highlights of Detrás del Muro (Behind the Wall), a project of public interventions staged on the beautiful sea boulevard of El Malecón, is the durational performance by Cuban artist Carlos Martiel, titled La sangre de Caín (Caín’s blood). Martiel has developed a distinct performative language made of disarmingly simple, yet particularly potent gestures that often test the limits of physical endurance under oft-extreme conditions. For his performative intervention for the Havana Biennial, Martiel has created a circular structure made of metal and stretched threads dyed with the blood of some of the artists involved in the protest against the Decree 349, who, in an act of solidarity, the artist has invited to contribute to his work. Dressed in white, Martiel stands inside this prison without walls, facing the sea, under a burning sun, becoming an object of contemplation, but also a subject of endurance and resistance. Who is the traitor? The artists whose dissent is seen by the government as a sign of betrayal, or the government itself, whose values of revolutionary freedom, equality, and justice contradict their repressive, and rather paternalistic, behaviours? Martiel’s evocative performance opens a space for contemplation, amid the intense noise and the chaos that seems to have taken hold of the country as it moves toward an unknown future. As if to suggest that, at this important historical juncture, it is time to take a moment before turning (…)
(more info here)
by Chris Dupuis for Hyperallergic
Nearly five decades since Chris Burden and Marina Abramović began their explorations, an emerging crop of artists are re-envisioning artistic self-harm in both methodology and intent.
(…) For Cuban artist Carlos Martiel, shedding blood is, in a sense, incidental to the work — less a part of the performance and more like a trip to the art store. Blood isn’t usually produced during the event. It’s more often collected in advance, usually by a nurse who withdraws the required amount. 2018’s Black Lament sees him stand motionless for hours in a pool of his blood. In 2019’s High Risk, threads soaked in blood from an HIV negative person on PreP (a treatment that prevents transmission) form a cross around his body. The religious references become more explicit in 2017’s “Peso muerto” (Dead Weight) (where he’s restrained by a wooden cross) and 2012’s “Yerto” (where he lies motionless shrouded in a white sheet, hinting at Jesus awaiting resurrection). (…)
(more info here)
por Gustavo Pérez Diez
Cinco intensos días de inauguración y de meeting (7-11 marzo) en varias sedes (Al Mureijah Square, Al Hamriyah Studios, Kalba Ice Factory, Kalba Kindergarten y Umm Al Quwain) han sido los vividos como invitado a la 14ª Bienal de Sharjah (SB14), que, bajo la organización de la Sharjah Art Foundation, presidida por Hoor Al Qasimi y financiada por el gobierno, extenderá sus actos hasta el 10 de junio.
Desde que dejé Nueva York con destino a Sharjah tenía un claro objetivo. Ver los proyectos de los 10 artistas y colectivos iberoamericanos (y con los presentes intentar hablar): el cubano Carlos Martiel, la argentina Adriana Bustos, el venezolano Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, el chileno Alfredo Jaar, el portugués Bruno Pacheco, las brasileñas Laura Lima y Aline Baiana, el mexicano Ulrik López, la dominicana Isabel Lewis y el dúo estadounidense-cubano Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla.
(más info aquí)
Performance de Carlos Martiel en la 13ª Bienal de la Habana como parte del proyecto Dedelmu.
Dom 14 de Abril
5:00 pm
(más info aquí)
Malecon 307, esq. Galeano
“Sabor a lágrimas”
Performance of Carlos Martiel at Bait Obaid Al Shamsi as part of the 14th Sharjah Biennial. This work is part of the exhibition “Look for Me All Around You” curated by Claire Tancons.
Saturday, March 9
10am–11am
(more info here)
Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, Arts Square | Corniche St – Sharjah – United Arab Emirates
