Carlos Motta: Stigmata at Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá was the largest exhibition in Colombia to date by the Colombian, New York-based multimedia artist Carlos Motta (Bogotá, 1978). The exhibition demonstrates the artist’s concern for documenting the social conditions and political disputes of sexual, ethnic and gender minorities, with the intention of challenging normative discourses through installations, drawings, videos, photographs, sculptures, performances and collaborative projects that They comprise almost three decades of Motta’s artistic career. He also presents his most recent work, a collaboration with historian Pablo Bedoya in which he explores the history of HIV/AIDS in Colombia.
Motta’s research-based work is divided into two main themes: On the one hand, projects that reflect on the construction of sexuality and gender as categories of knowledge during the conquest and the early period of colonialism in the Americas. Work like Nefandus (2013) belong to this group, which explores the colonial history of persecution of dissident sexual/gender identities; the miniature sculptures from Towards a homoerotic historiography (2014); Deseos (2015) which follows the epistolary correspondence between two women in the 19th century; and Corpo Fechado: The Devil’s Work (2018), a video that tells the true story of an enslaved man who was tried for sodomy and witchcraft in Portugal in the 18th century, are projects that investigate the construction of sexuality and gender as categories of knowledge during the conquest and the early era of colonialism in America.
On the other hand, the artist explores critiques of democracy from the perspective of marginalized communities. This group of projects includes Six Acts: An Experiment in Narrative Justice (2010), which documents a series of public performances about peace speeches delivered by left-wing Colombian politicians; We Who Feel Differently (2012), which explores the idea of sexual and gender “difference” in various geographic and cultural contexts; and Patriots, Citizens, Lovers… (2015), a work that presents video testimonies from Ukrainian queer and LGBTIQA+ activists about the critical situation that lesbian, gay, trans and intersex populations face in times of war.
Carlos Motta: Stigmata offers a retrospective look at Motta’s work, demonstrating how he challenges traditional societal norms by creating discursive platforms and aesthetic strategies that enable conversations around sex and gender as core issues of social justice.
Fotos de Gregorio Díaz