Carlos Amorales

donated by the artist

Some recent solo exhibitions
Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel 2009
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2008, 'Four Animations, Five Drawings, and a Plague'
Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York 2007, 'Black Cloud'
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam 2004

Some recent group exhibitions
Trienal Poligráfica de San Juan, 2009
MOMA, New York  2007
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam 2004, 'We are the World'
Biennale di Venezia, Venice 2003, Dutch pavilion

Selected publications
Raphaela Platow, Carlos Amorales: discarded spider, Rotterdam: Veenman 2008
Hans-Michael Herzog, Carlos Amorales: dark mirror, Zurich: Daros-Latinamerica ag/Hatje Cantz 2007
Carlos Amorales, Los Amorales, Amsterdam: Stichting Artimo 2000

Selected public and corporate collections
Museum of Modern Art, New York, US • Tate Modern, London, UK • Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, NL • Philadelphia Art Museum, Philadelphia, US • SMAK, Ghent BE • MCA Chicago, USA • Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, CH • Castello di Rivoli, Turin, IT • Daros Latinamerica collection, Zurich, CH • Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, NL • Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, US •  Walker Art Center, Minniapolis, US • La Coleccion Jumex, Mexico City, MX

Carlos Amorales' oeuvre includes performance, installation, drawing, animation and video. Back in 1999, the artist began his Liquid Archive. He initially set up this digital picture archive as a system for organizing his pictorial material but subsequently developed it into an inexhaustible source of pictures and a central part of his oeuvre. In the form of a database the Liquid Archive serves as an artistic tool equipped with an immense pool of motifs and figures. In addition to the letters of the alphabet designed by Amorales in red and black colours, the archive contains a wealth of templates all of which contain nocturnal, dark, aspects. With this figurative inventory, including hybrids, hermaphrodites, wolves, skulls and apes on their knees or creeping along, Amorales creates surreal, mythical worlds which are analogous to horror films and thrillers.
With Flames Maquiladora (2001-2002), staged in the Dutch Pavilion at the 2003 Venice Biennale, Amorales drew attention to the negative effects
of exploitation in the maquiladora industry in Mexico. The same attitude, critical of globalization and capitalism, is continued in Nuevos Ricos, both an art project and a record label. Nuevos Ricos was created by the artist together with the composer Julian Lede in 2003. Its history is represented in large installations, images and texts, cds fill entire wall surfaces, and video clips document the history of Nuevos Ricos and its contracted bands.

Carlos Amorales was resident artist in 1996-1997 and is now advisor at the Rijksakademie.