Carlos Martiel

Courtesy of the artist and Continua, Paris FR

Carlos Martiel is a multi-disciplined, performance artist whose work exists in the context of notions of the global apartheid, and calls attention to the violence and the cultural, political, and economic exploitation enacted by the US and Europe against Black people. Moreover, his performance work seeks to visibilize historical Black trauma as an effective tool for investigating and confronting the unresolved history of Black people’s dehumanization by Western societies, and to offer modes of resistance to it, often using his own nude body.

Martiel’s works have been included in the 11th Lanzarote Biennial, Spain; Biennial of the Americas, USA; 4th Vancouver Biennale, Canada; 14th Sharjah Biennial, UAE; 14th Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador; 57th Venice Biennale, Italy; Casablanca Biennale, Morocco; Biennial “La Otra”, Colombia; Liverpool Biennial, United Kingdom; Pontevedra Biennial, Spain; Havana Biennial, Cuba. He has had performances at The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; El Museo del Barrio, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; La Tertulia Museum, Cali, Colombia; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quito, Ecuador; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia (MACZUL), Maracaibo, Venezuela; Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan; and Nitsch Museum, Naples. He has received several awards, including the Franklin Furnace Fund in New York, 2016; “CIFOS Grants & Commissions Program Award” in Miami, 2014; “Arte Laguna” in Venice, 2013. His work has been exhibited at The São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), São Paulo; The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach; Zisa Zona Arti Contemporanee (ZAC), Palermo; Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami; Benaki Museum, Athens; National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana; and El Museo del Barrio, New York, 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); and Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro.