Solo show
Posesión: Carlos Martiel (2024)
VERVE GALERIA, São Paulo, Brazil.
August 24 – October 5, 2024
Reception: Saturday, August 24th, 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Verve gallery is opening ‘Posesión’, the first solo exhibition in Brazil by cuban artist Carlos Martiel. Opening on 24 August 2024, the show features new works produced especially for the Brazilian context, with a critical text by Ayrson Heráclito, an artist with whom he has collaborated numerous times and has had an intense exchange for many years.

Based in New York, Martiel is one of today’s most prestigious performers and has already performed at important institutions such as the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York (USA); El Museo del Barrio, New York (USA), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Netherlands); The Museum of Fine Arts Houston (USA), among others. The winner of numerous awards, his works are also part of the permanent collections of the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York (USA); The Pérez Art Museum Miami (Miami, USA); the Rio Art Museum (MAR), Rio de Janeiro, among others. At the moment, the a major retrospective exhibition at the Museo del Barrio, also in New York City, curated by the director of the institution’s director, Rodrigo Moura.

In the works developed for this show, Martiel investigates the dynamics surrounding bodies, exploring issues of resistance and resilience in the different contexts of colonisation. As a result, the artist weaves connections with the Brazilian reality in different religiosity (such as Candomblé), symbols (flags and medals) and territory (demarcations and disputes). In very synthetic and powerful works, Martiel transforms his existence into a radical experience of art. In the critical text developed for the for the exhibition, Ayrson Heráclito defines the strength of his work precisely: ‘we can think of his artistic discourse as the dissonant voice of a black, queer, dispossessed and immigrant subject in constant conflict with the politics of subjection of his time. Presenting an archive of situations where racism, sexism, colonialism and utopianism intersect in the most vicious and sadistic violence, the artist produces an anti-racist and libertarian manifesto. The poetics of his work trigger in the audience an uncomfortable ethical and political scare,’ concludes the curator.