Screening | “Deseos / رغبات” presented by Mor Charpentier Galerie at Claustro de San Agustín, Bogotá

September 30, 2015

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Group Exhibition | Memorias imborrables, MACRO, Vigo, September 11, 2015 – February 7, 2016

August 31, 2015

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Group Exhibition | Göteborg International Biennal for Contemporary Art, September 12 – Npovember 22, 2015

August 31, 2015

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Solo Exhibition | Désirs, Mor Charpentier Galerie, Paris, September 5 – October 31, 2105

August 31, 2015

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Group Exhibition | Memorias imborrables, MALBA, Buenos Aires

June 9, 2015

Carlos Motta, Letter to my father (standing by the fence), 2005

This video exhibition revisits polemic and conflict-ridden historical events from the personal perspectives of major international artists such as Akram Zaatari and Walid Raad (Lebanon); Coco Fusco (USA); Bouchra Khalili (Morocco); León Ferrari (Argentina); and Rosãngela Rennó, Carlos Motta, and Jonathas de Andrade (Brazil).

At the invitation of Solange Farkas—curator, founder, and director of the Associacao Cultural Videobrasil—Agustín Pérez Rubio, Artistic Director of MALBA, undertook an exhaustive study of the Videobrasil collection in order to choose eighteen works with highly political and social content. Whether addressing the Portuguese “conquest” of Brazil, the military coup in Chile, the 9-11 attacks in the United States, the massacre in Tiananmen Square China, or the civil war in Lebanon, there are many ways to relate—or to try to erase—stories kept alive thanks to the sensibility and work of countless artists from those regions.

Memorias imborrables helps to restore the memory of events and conflicts whose interpretation is often formulated in the official versions of the “winners,” events and conflicts that, nonetheless, live on in personal narratives that tell a different story rendered visible through art. The exhibition was first presented from August 31 to November 30, 2014 at the SESC Pompeia in San Pablo.

Organized in conjunction with the Art Department of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.

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Screening | Nefandus at Rencontres Internationales at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

June 9, 2015

Contemporary visual culture occupies the interface between aesthetic, social and political issues and adapts to the continuing development of production and dissemination technologies. The Rencontres Internationales offers a future-oriented way of observing these practices. After Paris last December at Gaîté Lyrique, Les Rencontres Internationales will offer during 6 days a space for discovery and thought covering the fields of new cinema and contemporary art.

In the presence of artists and filmmakers from all over the world, the event will offer an international program gathering 110 works from 40 countries, internationally-known artists and filmmakers and young artists and filmmakers presented for the first time in Berlin.

Nefandus screening on Thu. June 24 at 4pm

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Group Exhibition | Japanese Nightingale Doesn’t Sing at Night, XYZ collective, Tokyo

June 9, 2015

Japanese Nightingale Doesn’t Sing at Night
at XYZ collective
curated by American Boyfriend

Opening Reception : 2015.6.21 16:00-19:00
Open : 14:00 – 19:00 Thursday- Sunday (close Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
Artist : Johanna Billing / Carlos Motta / Hajime Sawatari / Yui Usui / Amy Yao

But if we are social beings and our survival depends upon a recognition of interdependency (which may not depend on the perception of likeness), then it is not as an isolated and bounded being that I survive, but as one whose boundary exposes me to others in ways that are voluntary and involuntary (sometimes at once), an exposure that is the condition of sociality and survival alike.
Judith Butler “Frames of War –When is Life Grievable?” (Verso, 2009)

I started American Boyfriend in 2012 as a way of researching the post-war history of Okinawa, where the fences of American military bases have created boundaries that divide both land and society. Through the project I aim to unearth clandestine relationships, such as an intimate connection shared by an American serviceman and a local Okinawan man, that were nurtured by the presence of such boundaries yet never surface within the official historical narrative. This exhibition stems from my interest in whether these boundaries exist outside of Okinawa, and if so, what relationships do they produce and how do such relationships resonate with one another?

As Butler wrote, if there is “an exposure that is the condition of sociality and survival alike,” then the resulting relationship may indeed be universal. Such relationships may exist in various parts of the world, various time periods throughout history, and various regions with language- or culture-based conflicts; equally there are those who attempt to destroy the boundaries, and those who attempt to co-exist in spite of the divisions caused by such boundaries. The majority of such instances do not affect politicians nor artists, instead it is people like ourselves, those who are simply trying to live ordinary lives. We are constantly exposed to boundaries. And while boundaries can be sites of confrontation, they also have the potential to be sites where new relationships are nurtured. It is not too futile to imagine sharing the same air as those on the other side of the boundary, or even reaching out to them.

More than a century ago in America, the Chinese-Canadian novelist Winnifred Eaton adopted the pen name of Onoto Watanna and after claiming to be Japanese-American, went on to write numerous novels set in Japan. “Japanese Nightingale” was a bestseller at the time, but its title is a contradiction in itself. The uguisu, which Eaton referred to as the Japanese Nightingale, doesn’t in fact sing at night as the nightingale does. Yet we must remember that the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean separated the author from her novel’s setting – her romantic story resulted from reaching out to imagine the other side.

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Group Exhibition | Acting on Dreams: The State of Immigrant Rights, Conditions, and Advocacy in the United States, Franklin Street Works, Stamford

June 9, 2015

“Acting on Dreams: The state of immigrant rights, conditions, and advocacy in the U.S.” is an original group exhibition curated by Yaelle S. Amir for Franklin Street Works. It will be on view from June 13 – August 30, 2015. Opening reception is Saturday, June 13 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm. With a VIP members preview from 5:00 – 6:00 pm.

Award Finalist | Carlos Motta is announced as finalist of the First LOOP Barcelona Discovery Award

May 24, 2015

The Discovery Award finalists are: Adrian Melis, Carlos Motta, Itziar Barrio, Joan Bennassar, Karen Mirza & Brad Butler, Marco Godoy, Rob Kennedy, Ryan Rivadeneyra, Shahar Marcus, Virgile Fraisse and YunTing Tsai, with the most voted video online

The Discovery Award has been created with the aim to support and recognize the recent production of videos and films by international artists through a free open call to the artistic community. This LOOP Barcelona initiative is supported by Estrella Damm, who sponsors this first edition of the prize, in line with its longtime support to the cultural sector. Furthermore, the exhibition featuring the finalist projects, included in the program of LOOP Barcelona 2015, will be hosted by Estrella Damm in its Antigua Fábrica (former beer factory) in Barcelona, giving the audience the opportunity to enjoy the works in an exhibitionformat.

With the aim of fostering a space for the promotion of video art works, the Discovery Award also creates an online video channel, in which selected works to the second stage of the competition will be available for viewing and voting.

The Discovery Award encourages artists to participate and the public to enjoy the best international artistic creation.

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Film Premiere | New film “Deseos / رغبات” at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, May 14th at 7:30pm

May 6, 2015

Deseos / رغبات (Desires) exposes the ways in which medicine, law, religion, and cultural tradition shaped dominant discourses of the gendered and sexual body through the narration of two parallel stories. The first is that of Martina, who lived in Colombia during the late colonial period of the early 19th century. The second is the life of Nour, who lived in Beirut during the late Ottoman Empire. Part documentary and part fiction, the film presents an imaginary correspondence between these women. Separated by geography, culture, and religion they both faced the consequences of engaging in same sex relations and defying gender norms.

The colonial Court prosecuted Martina in 1803 for being a “hermaphrodite” after being accused by her female lover of having an “unnatural” body. Martina was tried in a court of law and ultimately set free after medical doctors appointed by the court were unable to find evidence of her lover’s accusation. This story is documented in the 1803 legal case found in the Archivo General de la Nación in Bogotá, Colombia. Meanwhile in Beirut, Nour married her female lover’s brother after her mother found them making love. Despite the fact that Nour’s story does not occur in a courtroom nor is it found in a legal case, notions of Islamic and late Ottoman laws, cultures, and histories condition her narrative.

Premiere
Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, May 14th at 7:30pm

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