Carlos Motta, Artist

News

Video Program | “Universal” at Arte Americas, Miami, March 3-5

February 26, 2012

Talk and Q&A | Petite Mort with Billy Miller at Leslie Lohman Gay and Lesbian Art Museum

February 26, 2012

Tuesday, February 28; 6-8 pm
26 Wooster Street, NYC

Does Public Sex Matter?

Discussion and Q&A with Billy Miller, contributing artist and Carlos Motta, co-editor

The book Petite Mort: Recollections of a Queer Public assembles drawings from memory of spaces in New York City where a public sexual encounter occurred. A project created in collaboration between Carlos Motta and Joshua Lubin-Levy, it features drawing contributions from an inter-generational group of over 60 gay men and texts by 15 authors. Petite Mort reminds us that public sex is not exclusively about a personal pursuit of pleasure-they also contain the seeds of historical, social, and political action.

Billy Miller is a New York-based artist, curator, writer, filmmaker, and independent publisher. His artwork has been presented internationally. Petite Mort was curated by Ingrid Chu and Savannah Gorton, and commissioned and published by the non-profit Forever & Today, Inc.

The book will be available for purchase at the event or at Printed Matter, Inc.

Group Exhibition | ÑEW YORK Latin American and Spanish artists in New York, Art Museum of the Americas, D.C

February 1, 2012

February 16 – May 20, 2012

AMA ׀ Art Museum of the Americas
201 18th Street, NW 
Washington, DC 20006

Ñew York, featuring works by young, outstanding Latin American and Spanish artists residing in New York City commemorates a long lost artistic exchange and recovers innovative communication channels between Latin American and Spanish plastic and visual artists.  The exhibition incorporates New York City as the current setting where these creative forces re-encounter themselves. The exhibition addresses mobility in an era of widespread displacement where barriers between the global and the local are broken down. Motion (mobility), Emotion (personal artistic work) and Promotion (promote and advance the careers of expat artists) are all addressed throughout the show. The artists were selected based on their accomplishments, artistic careers and their approach to concepts of mobility, migration and cultural exchange, all intrinsic to a city where new ideas, experiences and diversity converge.

Curated by Paco Cano, Eva Mendoza Chandas and Jodie Dinapoli (all from Spain), Ñew York showcases the work of 18 artists from 10 countries from Latin America and Spain -all based in New York – who have made this city the gravitating force of their artistic discourse.

FEATURED ARTISTS
Abigail Lazkoz (Spain)
Ada Bobonis (Puerto Rico)
Alberto Borea (Peru)
Antón Cabaleiro (Spain)
Carlos Motta (Colombia)
Julieta Aranda (Mexico)
Esperanza Mayobre (Venezuela)
Dulce Pinzón (Mexico)
Fernando Renes (Spain)
Félix Fernández (Spain)
Juanma Carrillo (Spain)
Iván Navarro (Chile)
Jessica Lagunas (Guatemala)
Lluis Lleó (Spain)
Manuela Viera-Gallo (Chile)
Manuel Molina Martagón (Mexico)
Sol Aramendi (Argentina)
Nicky Enright (Ecuador)

More info here 

Symposium | SITAC X: The Future: The Long Count Begins Again, Feb. 9,10 and 11, Mexico City

January 12, 2012

Grant | Carlos Motta is named 2012 Creative Capital Grantee

January 12, 2012

CREATIVE CAPITAL ANNOUNCES 2012 GRANTEES IN FILM/VIDEO AND VISUAL ARTS 
 

Creative Capital announces its 2012 grants in Film/Video and Visual Arts to 46 adventurous projects representing 56 artists. For the 2012 grantees, Creative Capital will provide up to $50,000 in direct project funding, plus advisory services valued at more than $40,000. With the addition of the 46 new grantees, Creative Capital will have committed nearly $25 million in financial and advisory support to artistssince 1999, including nearly $3 million in 2011 alone.

The 2012 Creative Capital grants in Film/Video are awarded to: Cam Archer,Robert Bahar & Almudena Carracedo, Amy Belk & Matt Porterfield, Brad Butler, Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel, Eric Dyer, Daniel Eisenberg, Yance Ford, Brian L. Frye & Penny Lane, Sonali Gulati, Kenneth Jacobs, Nina Menkes,Akosua Adoma Owusu, Brian Pera, Rick Prelinger, Michael Robinson, Mark Elijah Rosenberg, Norbert Shieh, Stacey Steers, Deborah Stratman, Jesse Sugarmann, Christopher Sullivan and Jake Yuzna. 

The 2012 Creative Capital grants in Visual Arts are awarded to: Janine Antoni, Raven Chacon & Nathan Young, Patty Chang, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Theaster Gates, Ken Gonzales-Day, Taraneh Hemami, Tahir Hemphill, Simone Leigh, Eric Leshinsky & Zach Moser, Phillip Andrew Lewis, Carlos Motta, My Barbarian (Malik Gaines, Jade Gordon & Alexandro Segade), The Propeller Group (Matt Lucero & Tuan Andrew Nguyen), Teri Rofkar, Paul Rucker, Connie Samaras, Lisa Sigal, Jim Skuldt, Kerry Tribe, Joan Waltemath, Women (Scott Barry & Neil Doshi) and Amy Yao.  

Creative Capital is a premier provider of risk capital in the arts. In the past year, Creative Capital has re-invigorated its grantmaking process to emphasize the importance of risk-taking: taking chances on projects that are singularly bold, innovative, genre-stretching and of this moment; ideas of scope and ambition expressed through audacious combinations of form and content; varied projects that engage or even create new technologies; and works that take traditional approaches into new territories, teaching us something new about the world and ourselves.

“With this new class of 2012 grantees, we are thrilled to support work that is highly contemporary, daring, delightful and complex—work that astonishes with the richness of its ideas,” commented Ruby Lerner, Creative Capital’s President & Executive Director. “Creative Capital continually aims to support the latest thinking in the field, and this year’s grantees push the boundaries of visual arts, film and video.”

More info here

Conversation | Bulletin Board, January 15, 6pm

January 12, 2012

Exhibition | Carlos Motta: Deus Pobre: Modern Sermons of Communal Lament, Y Gallery, NY

November 24, 2011

November 22-December 23

 

Y Gallery
165 Orchard Street
Tue-Sun: 12-6pm 

DEUS POBRE: Modern Sermons of Communal Lament is a video installation based on a series of performative interventions in Catholic churches in Porto, Portugal. Six ordained priests —all of whom share an interest in the theology movement known as Liberation theology— read excerpts of key sermons and texts delivered by theologians and priests since the 17th Century.

Liberation theology emerged in the 1970s in Latin America —with developments in other parts of the world— where oppression, marginalization and vulnerability have determined the social landscape since the times of the Conquest. The movement focuses on the “dialogue between the Christian tradition, social theory, and the insight of the poor into their own situation, leading to action for change.”(1)  Liberation theology underlines the political potential of the church’s mission and denounces instances when the church has been complicit with regimes of imperial and oppressive power.

Set in Portugal, DEUS POBRE, which translates as Impoverished God, revisits this particular history by asking contemporary priests to deliver, during their daily mass or for a public audience, theological-political sermons originally written byBartolomé de las Casas (1542), António Vieira (1653-57), Gustavo Gutiérrez(1971), Óscar Romero (1977-80),and Leonardo Boff (1996). Thus the priests engage with Portugal’s colonial history and the past role of the church in missionary evangelization, as well as with its current institutional role in a globalized and socially unequal world where the majority of its population lives in abject poverty.

More info here

Exhibition and Book Launch | The Future Lasts Forever, Gävle Konstcentrum, Sweden

November 24, 2011

November 19, 2011— March 4, 2012


 

Opening reception: November 19, 3 pm 
Presentation of the project by Carlos Motta and Runo Lagomarsino
Lecture by Miguel López, Red Conceptualismos del Sur
Moderator: Lisa Rosendahl, Director, Iaspis

The Future Lasts Forever is a book and exhibition project initiated by artists Runo Lagomarsino and Carlos Motta featuring contributions by 21 artists, collectives, and writers who reflect about “the future of Latin America.”

What is the future of Latin America?

When thinking about the making of a future, of an idea of futurity, we must think of what kind of historical lenses we shall employ. The future is inevitably tied to the past and it is defined by the present. The past has been created by ghosts that have determined the present; as specters they manifest in the present as agents of influence. Is there a productive mechanism to free ourselves from this kind of historical determination? What is the role of memory and history in this process? What is the role of artists in imagining a society of the future?

The Book
The Future Lasts Forever compiles newly commissioned essays and projects by a group of Latin American artists and thinkers, who have been assigned the task to reflect about “the future of Latin America.” Ideas conceived to challenge traditional expectations about what the future will bring. The texts and projects in this publication also attempt to transcend stereotypical representations of Latin America, to reflect about our relationship to historical narratives, and to recognize the importance of the actions carried through in the present

With contributions by: Alexander Apóstol, Beta-Local with Juan López Bauza and Luis Pérez, Giuseppe Campuzano, Carlos Capelán, Isabel García Pérez de Arce, Marianna Garín and Roberto Jacoby, Inti Guerrero, Runo Lagomarsino, Walter Mignolo, Carlos Motta, Mujeres CreandoJuan Velentini and Carla Zaccagnini.

Download a free PDF of the book here
www.gavlekonstcentrum.se/content/view/37/176/lang,en

The Exhibition
The Future Lasts Foreveris also an exhibition presented at Gävle Konstcentrum in Sweden (November 19, 2011– March 4, 2012), featuring works by Allora & Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Carlos Bunga, Mariana Castillo Deball, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Carlos Garaicoa, Antoni Muntadas, Adriana Lara and Wilfredo Prieto.

The Future Lasts Forever is published in collaboration between Iaspis and Gävle Konstcentrum. A series of lectures and workshops will take place during the winter 2011­–2012.

More info here

Group Exhibition | The Walls That Divide Us, apexart, New York

November 1, 2011

November 9 — December 22, 2011

Opening reception: Wed., November 9, 6-8 pm 

Featuring work by: Gisele Amantea, Kader Attia, Carolina Caycedo, Chen Chieh-jen, Sam Durant, Leor Grady, Ivan Grubanov, Shilpa Gupta, Alfredo Jaar, Emily Jacir, Runo Lagomarsino, Teresa Margolles, Locky Morris, Carlos Motta, Ahmet Ögüt, Anna Ostoya, Amalia Pica, Rigo 23. Curated by Miguel Amado.

In the early 1990s, Western-style liberal democracies appeared as the archetypal form of government from which a peacekeeping transnational power would emerge. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the end of the Cold War inaugurated what one hoped was an era without conflict. However, on the fiftieth anniversary of that fortification, strife is spreading worldwide. From the U.S.-Mexico frontier to Jerusalem, more and more barbed wired fences and checkpoints are being assembled, splitting communities and creating areas of exclusion. The construction of the Berlin Wall, rather than its demise, is the historical moment that encapsulates the current state of affairs. The organizing principle of present times is not the free circulation of individuals but the walls that divide them.

The Walls That Divide Us addresses the proliferation of state and city separation barriers across the globe as symbols of dissent in contemporary politics. Featured artists examine the ideology of wall building as a means of segregating populations to establish sovereignty in uneven geographies. The works in the show draw attention to the material, normative, and cultural function of barricading in zones of conflict today and the social injustice that it generates. They comment on the establishment of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the Israeli-Palestinian question, the violence in Ciudad Juárez, and the migration crisis in the Mediterranean region. They also explore phenomena such as imperialistic enterprises and contested territories, security policies and border control, revolutionary movement and mass protest.

More info here

Group Exhibition and Book Launch | The Air We Breathe at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

October 15, 2011

November 5 -February 20, 2011

Over the last decade, equal rights for same-sex couples — including the right to legally wed — has proven one of the country’s most pressing civil rights issues. In the belief that art can lead to new ways of thinking and open up dialogue, The Air We Breathe brings together thirty visual artists and eight poets who offer their commitment and creativity to the cause of marriage equality. The show and its accompanying book — both titled after a phrase from a Langston Hughes poem, “Equality is in the air we breathe” — aim to prompt public discussion and foster ever broader understanding of a crucial issue of our time.

Visual artists in the exhibition include Laylah Ali, D-L Alvarez, Doug Ashford, Nayland Blake, Jennifer Bornstein, Andrea Bowers, Robert Buck, Johanna Calle, Martha Colburn, Sam Durant, Shannon Ebner, Nicole Eisenman, Simon Fujiwara, Liam Gillick, Robert Gober, Ann Hamilton, Sharon Hayes, Christian Holstad, Elliott Hundley, Colter Jacobsen, Matt Keegan, Carlos Motta, Catherine Opie, Nicolás Paris, Dan Perjovschi, Raymond Pettibon, Amy Sillman, Allison Smith, Lily van der Stokker, and Erika Vogt. Poets include George Albon, Will Alexander, John Ashbery, Dodie Bellamy, kari edwards (poem selected by Frances Blau and Rob Halpern), Kevin Killian, Ariana Reines, and Anne Waldman.

New York City book launch
Saturday, November 5, 6-7:30pm
White Columns
320 West 13th Street

More info here