14 – 17 October, 2021 | booth S9
Bubble’n’Squeak presents Isabelle D, Carlos Martiel, Themba Khumalo.
(more info here)
Somerset House | Strand, London WC2R 1LA, UK.
Oct 142021
Sep 282021
CARLOS MARTIEL
Interview by Tyler Akers for GAYLETTER
Portraits by Renee Cox
With his body at the center of his durational performances, Martiel pushes his own limits while also calling attention to deplorable histories.
Perhaps we should start at the beginning; could you speak a little bit about what it was like coming up in Cuba? When did you begin performing? I started working in performance in 2007. I remember that back in the day I was studying goldsmithing at the San Alejandro Art Academy, and alongside my jewelry work, I was also making unconventional drawings. I say unconventional because the materials I was using to make them were not traditional, like oil or acrylic paint, or even using a canvas. I was using different pigments, such as iron oxide diluted in vinegar, coal, beeswax, and blood. And it was the use of my own blood, specifically, which catapulted me to working with my own body. To extract my blood and make drawings, I had to go to public clinics and ask the nurses on duty to perform a phlebotomy on me. At first they agreed to do it, but as I started coming to the clinic more often, they began to either decrease the amount of blood extracted or refuse to do it altogether. This caused a great deal of frustration, since I couldn’t materialize the type of work I wished to make. That’s when I had the idea of using my body as an object and a subject of my conceptual interests, without having to depend on a third party. This is how I came to realize my first performance.
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Jul 132021
By Siddhartha Mitter
Two major foundations have joined forces to make unrestricted cash grants to artists of Latin American or Caribbean descent born or living in the United States.
The venture, the Latinx Artist Fellowships, is backed by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, and aims to redress imbalances in national funding patterns while highlighting the range of these artists’ work and its cultural contribution.
The first 15 fellows, announced Monday, will each receive $50,000. Over five years, 75 artists will receive $3.75 million, with further support planned for museums and academic projects.
The fellows include artists at different stages in their career, from the 84-year-old Celia Álvarez Muñoz to established figures like Coco Fusco and Elia Alba, midcareer artists like Carolina Caycedo and rafa esparza, and younger artists like Carlos Martiel.
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The New York Times
Jul 122021
Supporting the most compelling Latinx artists working in the US today
Latinx artists—people of Latin American or Caribbean descent who live and work in the US—have made significant and vital contributions to American culture. Yet these artists have lacked visibility and received little of the philanthropic or institutional support necessary to secure their place in the story of American art. Designed to address this systemic and longstanding lack of support, the Latinx Artist Fellowship will award $50,000 each to a multigenerational cohort of 15 Latinx visual artists each year for an initial commitment of five years. Administered by the US Latinx Art Forum in collaboration with the New York Foundation for the Arts and supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, this award is the first significant prize of its kind and celebrates the plurality and diversity of Latinx artists and aesthetics.
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May 262021
Do you remember the last time you experienced a live, in-person performance? Neither can we. This is why we are so excited to open our doors to the public for the first in-person presentation by the Museum in over two years with performance artist Carlos Martiel’s durational performance, Pink Death on June 2nd, 6-8 pm (EDT).
Building on Cuban and international histories, Martiel’s artistic repertoire offers visceral political critiques on social tensions while both embodying and challenging commonly perceived limitations. The performance will gesture toward the vulnerabilities of Black and Latinx LGBTQ people in HIV/AIDs discourse where structural stigmatization, systematic racism, poverty and lack of access to adequate healthcare continue to adversely weigh down marginalized communities who are immensely affected by such inequities. Martiel’s point of departure is the history of the pink triangle, originating in Nazi Germany as an inverted triangle of pink cloth, which was used to identify homosexuals in concentration camps.
Decades later, during the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s in the United States, the pink triangle was reappropriated in a vertical position as a symbol of resistance and solidarity, at a time when people living with HIV/AIDS were met with silence and indifference by institutions worldwide. Pink Death inherently triggers a visual reflection in the context of the current global COVID19 pandemic on the violences still experienced today by gay, queer Black, and Latinx people living with HIV/AIDs in the United States and the global south.
This performance is guest curated by Kevin Q. Ewing.
Carlos Martiel (b. 1989, Havana) lives and works in NY. Martiel’s works have been shown in the biennials of Venice, Sharjah, and Vancouver; at the Stedelijk Museum, Walker Art Center, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, MOLAA, Frost Art Museum, and the National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana, and elsewhere. His works are included in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum; Museu de Arte do Rio, and the PAMM, among others.
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Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art | 26 Wooster St, New York, NY 10013
Apr 172021
por Coco Fusco para Hypermedia Magazine
Carlos Martiel ha creado algunos de los performances más impactantes jamás realizadas por un artista cubano. A lo largo de los últimos quince años, ha transformado su cuerpo en un símbolo de sujeción, supervivencia y resistencia colectiva, con actuaciones memorables que evocan las historias y experiencias de los marginados y desplazados.
Conocí el trabajo de Carlos Martiel a través de mi querida amiga y colega Sandra Ceballos. Me impresionó la crudeza de sus imágenes: sus brazos extendidos sangrando, su cabeza bajo la bota de un soldado, sus párpados cubiertos de excrementos. Parecía que se cortaba a sí mismo, se marcaba y sometía su carne al estrés sin pensarlo dos veces.
Cuando estaba preparando el libro que escribí sobre el arte del performance y su relación con la arena política en Cuba, sabía que tenía que incluir una discusión sobre Hijo pródigo, el performance en el que Martiel perfora su propio pecho con las medallas revolucionarias de su padre, en un comentario inolvidable sobre el costo personal del voluntariado revolucionario.
Desde su salida de Cuba en 2012, Martiel ha ampliado sus referencias históricas para abordar sus experiencias en América Latina, Europa y Estados Unidos. Ha tomado las tendencias masoquistas del arte corporal de los años 70 y ha refundido esos gestos como alegorías políticas sobre la condición social de los cuerpos negros en toda la diáspora africana, evocando historias de esclavitud, subyugación y desterritorialización.
En la siguiente entrevista, hablamos de los orígenes de su familia, de su experiencia en Cuba con la educación artística, de su interés por la sangre como material expresivo, y de su enfoque escultórico del performance.
(más info aquí)
Mar 032021
I AM: NEW AFRO-LATINX NARRATIVES
February 24th – April 24th, 2021
Curated by Chief Curator Gabriela Urtiaga
Hand-in-hand with renowned artists, today we celebrate and honor African heritage and its influence in Latin American countries and the rich culture that resulted from that union.
Through a selection of artworks and artistic perspectives that have a poetic and political narrative at the same time, we present an open conversation through art, around important themes like race, power, and heritage, revisiting the fight for identity in communities of African descent.
This transnationalism in the Americas has been silenced for centuries and has been violently interrupted by a System of Power that excludes the Other.
From a perspective of diversity, a journey through history, and an endless experience marked in bodies by stories and experiences, we research the representation and questions generated through an artistic practice committed to its past, present, and future.
Together with artists like Victoria Santa Cruz (Peru, 1922-2014), Alexandre Arrechea (Cuba, 1970), Patricia Encarnación (Dominican Republic, 1991), Carlos Martiel (Cuba, 1989), and Liliana Angulo Cortés (Colombia, 1974) we immerse ourselves in individual stories as well as from a collective experience, with clear social, political, and cultural references that explore in depth the struggles, suffering, and hope for a better present and future.
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Feb 082021
CARLOS MARTIEL
TWO INSIGNIAS
OCDCHINATOWN
FEBRUARY 17 – MARCH 17, 2021
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC ONE VIEWER AT A TIME ON SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS BTW 12 AND 6 PM OR BY APPOINTMENT
OCDCHINATOWN IS PROUD TO PRESENT TWO INSIGNIAS BY CARLOS MARTIEL. EXHIBITED FOR THE FIRST TIME, THIS WORK PRESENTS A DIPTYCH OF INTERVENED AMERICAN FLAGS AND A VIDEO WHERE THE FLAG IS ACTIVATED AT A NYC PROTEST IN 2020.
CARLOS MARTIEL’S WORK PROPOSES HIS OWN PHYSICALITY TO SUBLIMATE THE STRUGGLES OF THE BLACK BODY, USING SYMBOLS THAT REFLECT ON A SYSTEMIC RACISM NORMALIZED THROUGH ACCULTURATION. USING HIMSELF AS A CHANNELING DEVICE, HE DIRECTLY EMPHASIZES AND AMPLIFIES SOCIAL SITUATIONS THAT ARE OFTEN EXPERIENCED IN THE ABSTRACT, ESPECIALLY BY THOSE WHO ARE NOT EXPLICITLY IMPLICATED.
THE AMERICAN FLAG IS ONE SUCH SYMBOL. TWO FLAGS, STAINED RED WITH BLOOD. A SOUND PIERCING IN MY EARS AT THIS REALIZATION STRIKES; AN IMAGINARY CLOSE-UP SCENE OF TWO HANDS RUBBING BLOOD AND WORKING IT INTO THE HEAVY, SATIN FABRIC PLAYS IN MY HEAD. UPON CLOSER INSPECTION, IN ITS OCHRE AMBIGUITY, IT REMINDS US OF THE MIRAGE THAT EXISTS BETWEEN SYMBOL, PERSONALITY, AND COMMUNITY. THE UNITED STATES, THE COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE THIS FLAG REPRESENTS, BECOMES ORGANIC AS THE TRAPPINGS OF SOCIALIZATION ARE STRIPPED AWAY. FOR CENTURIES, COMMUNITIES OF AFRO AMERICAN AND AFRO LATIN IMMIGRANTS HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED TO FEAR, VIOLENCE AND INVISIBILITY. OPPRESSION COULD TURN PASSIVE OR FURIOUS, BUT NEITHER HAPPENS IN MARTIEL’S WORK. INSTEAD, THE FLAG HAS BEEN SPUN INTO A LIVING BEING, TURNING UP AT THE PROTEST FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY, AMIDST A STRUGGLE AGAINST SOCIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FORCES THAT INTEND TO STOP THE FLOW OF THE ARTIST’S OWN BLOOD AND QUELL THE SPIRIT OF THE TYRANNIZED.
THIS IS AN OFFERING. UNLIKE THE VIOLENCE THAT TRANSFORMS OUR IDENTITIES INTO INVISIBLY SHEDDING TEARS, IT STAKES A BOLD, FLUORESCENTLY VISIBLE NEW CLAIM ON THE SYMBOL. THE FLAG EXISTS AS ITSELF, WITH ALL ITS FRAUGHT HISTORIES, BUT IS SEEN HERE IN A STATE OF REGENERATION, IN THE CROWD, BEARING THE BLOOD OF TWO AFRO AMERICANS AND AN AFRO LATINO IMMIGRANT.
CARLOS MARTIEL (BORN 1989, HAVANA). LIVES AND WORKS IN NEW YORK AND HAVANA. HE GRADUATED IN 2009 FROM THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS “SAN ALEJANDRO,” IN HAVANA. BETWEEN THE YEARS 2008-2010, HE STUDIED IN THE CÁTEDRA ARTE DE CONDUCTA, DIRECTED BY THE ARTIST TANIA BRUGUERA. MARTIEL’S WORKS HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE 4TH VANCOUVER BIENNALE, CANADA; 14TH SHARJAH BIENNIAL, UAE; 14TH CUENCA BIENNIAL, ECUADOR; 57TH VENICE BIENNALE, ITALY; LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL, UNITED KINGDOM; HAVANA BIENNIAL, CUBA. HE HAS HAD PERFORMANCES AT THE STEDELIJK MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS; LA TERTULIA MUSEUM, CALI, COLOMBIA; WALKER ART CENTER, MINNEAPOLIS, USA; THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON (MFAH), HOUSTON, USA; PADIGLIONE D’ARTE CONTEMPORANEA, MILAN, ITALY; ROBERT MILLER GALLERY, NEW YORK, USA; NITSCH MUSEUM, NAPLES, ITALY. HE HAS RECEIVED SEVERAL AWARDS, INCLUDING THE FRANKLIN FURNACE FUND IN NEW YORK, USA, 2016; “CIFOS GRANTS & COMMISSIONS PROGRAM AWARD” IN MIAMI, USA, 2014; “ARTE LAGUNA” IN VENICE, ITALY, 2013. HIS WORK HAS BEEN EXHIBITED AT THE SÃO PAULO MUSEUM OF ART (MASP), SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL; THE MUSEUM OF LATIN AMERICAN ART (MOLAA), LONG BEACH, USA; PATRICIA AND PHILLIP FROST ART MUSEUM, MIAMI, USA; BENAKI MUSEUM, ATHENS, GREECE; NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HAVANA, CUBA; AMONG OTHERS. HIS WORKS ARE IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS SUCH AS THE SOLOMON R GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK; THE PÉREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI (PAMM), MIAMI; MUSEU DE ARTE DO RIO, RIO DE JANEIRO.
CURATED BY PAU LLAPUR
(more info here)
OCDChinatown | 75 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002, United States
Oct 302020
EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO ANNOUNCES ARTISTS FOR
ESTAMOS BIEN – LA TRIENAL 20/21
El Museo del Barrio is pleased to announce the list of 40+ artists participating in the museum’s first national large-scale survey of Latinx contemporary art, ESTAMOS BIEN – LA TRIENAL 20/21. The selection is the culmination of more than one year of studio visits and conversations with artists from across the United States and Puerto Rico by the Curatorial Team composed of El Museo del Barrio’s Chief Curator Rodrigo Moura and Curator Susanna V. Temkin, and New York-based artist Elia Alba as Guest Curator. A year-long initiative, La Trienal made its debut in in summer 2020 with a series of online projects by artists Lizania Cruz, xime izquierdo ugaz, Collective Magpie, Michael Menchaca, and Poncilí Creación. The full show will debut in Las Galerías from March 13, 2021 to August 22, 2021.
Expanded to a nation-wide scope, La Trienal foregrounds an intersectional approach to Latinx identity, including artists and collectives from different generations, genders, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. Featuring artworks created after the year 2000, the show includes painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, photography, ceramics, textile, and performance. While the exhibition eschews any overarching thematics, many of the artists address issues related to gentrification and commercialization; family – both chosen and inherited; identity and structural racism; migration and displacement; and climate and ecological justice; among other topics.
The full list of selected artists for ESTAMOS BIEN – LA TRIENAL 20/21:
Francis Almendárez (b. 1987, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Houston, TX); Candida Alvarez (b. 1955, Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Chicago, IL); Eddie R. Aparicio (b. 1990, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Fontaine Capel (b. 1990, Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Queens, NY); Carolina Caycedo (b. 1978, London, UK, raised in Colombia; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Juan William Chavez (b. 1977, Lima, Peru; lives and works in St. Louis MO); Yanira Collado (b. 1975, Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Miami, FL), Collective Magpie (Based in San Diego, CA); Lizania Cruz (b. 1983, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY); Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski (b. 1985, Bordeaux, France, raised across the East Coast, Midwest, and Southern U.S.; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY); Dominique Duroseau (b. 1978, Chicago, IL and raised in Haiti; lives and works in Newark, NJ); Justin Favela (b. 1986, Las Vegas, NV; lives and works in Las Vegas, NV); Luis Flores (b. 1985, West Covina, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); ektor garcia (b. 1985, Red Bluff, CA; lives and works nomadically); Maria Gaspar (b. 1980, Chicago, IL; lives and works in Chicago, IL); Victoria Gitman (b. 1972, Buenos Aires, Argentina; lives and works in Hallandale Beach, FL); Antonio Gomez (b. 1965, Mexico; lives and works in Las Vegas, NV); Manuela Gonzalez (b. 1983, Miami, FL, raised in Medellín, Colombia; lives and works in New York, NY); Lucia Hierro (b. New York, NY; lives and works in New York, NY); xime izquierdo ugaz (b. 1992, Lima, Peru; lives and works in Lima, Peru); The Museum of Pocket Art (Established 2004 in El Paso, TX; based in Austin, TX); Esteban Jefferson (b. 1989, New York, NY; lives and works in New York, NY); Roberto Lugo (b. 1981, Philadelphia, PA; lives and works in Philadelphia, PA); Carlos Martiel (b. 1989, Havana, Cuba; lives and works in New York, NY); Patrick Martinez (b. 1980, Pasadena, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Yvette Mayorga (b. 1991, Silvis and raised in Moline, IL; lives and works in Chicago, IL); Groana Melendez (b. 1984, raised between New York City and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; lives and works in the Bronx, NY); María Jose (b. 1992, Caguas, Puerto Rico; lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico); Michael Menchaca (b. 1985, San Antonio, TX; lives and works in San Antonio, TX); Dionis Ortiz (b. 1979, Harlem, NY; lives and works in Washington Heights, NY); Poncilí Creación (Based in San Juan, Puerto Rico); Postcommodity (Based in the Southwest); Simonette Quamina (b. 1982, Ontario, Canada; lives and works in New York, NY); Vick Quezada (b. 1979, El Paso, TX; lives and works in Northampton, MA); Sandy Rodriguez (b. 1975, National City, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Yelaine Rodriguez (b. 1990, Bronx, NY; lives and works in the Bronx, NY); Nyugen E. Smith (b. 1976 Jersey City, NJ; lives and works in Jersey City, NJ); Edra Soto (b. 1971, Puerto Rico; lives and works in Chicago, IL); Ada Trillo (b. 1976, El Paso, TX; lives and works in Philadelphia, PA); Joey Terrill (b. 1955, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Torn Apart/Separados (Active in the United States); Vincent Valdez (b. 1977, San Antonio, TX; lives and works in Houston, TX); and Raelis Vasquez (b. 1995, Mao Valverde, Dominican Republic; lives and works in New York, NY).
ESTAMOS BIEN – LA TRIENAL 20/21 represents an important opportunity for El Museo del Barrio to expand the art historical canon and advance much-needed awareness of the cultural production by Latinx artists. Today we invite you to join us in this work and consider supporting the museum with a tax-deductible donation. Your generosity will enable us to continue exceeding expectations and honoring the cultural legacy of Latinx communities in the United States.
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Sep 072020
Cuban performance artist Carlos Martiel uses his body to address the restrictions and limitations within the lived experience of the black male body. The ephemerality of performance points towards the immediacy that his subject poses, the fragility of continuing to exist is questioned by the passage of time. The perpetual threat on the body shows the persistence of the systems that are in place in our society; systems of violence, ostracization, and displacement. Martiel approaches these topics from the non-western migrant experience and specifically the identity of the black male within that conversation. The physicality of his performance alludes to the invisibility of the immigrant and black body, a body that is inextricably linked to notions of tradition, culture, and belonging. His safety, within his performance, is constantly threatened. In an act of resistance, the confrontational element of the nude stakes a claim on the space Martiel occupies–he fears, he bleeds, he lives.
IN STUDIO
November 21 – December 19, 2020.
ON EXHIBIT
November 21 – January 16, 2021.
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Lux Art Institute | 1550 S El Camino Real, Encinitas, CA 92024