Carlos Motta

Carlos Motta is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work draws upon political history in an attempt to create counter narratives that recognize suppressed histories, communities, and identities. His work is known for its engagement with histories of queer culture and activism and for its insistence that the politics of sex and gender represent an opportunity to articulate definite positions against social and political injustice.

Motta’s work has been presented internationally in venues such as Tate Modern, London; The New Museum, The Guggenheim Museum and MoMA/PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá; Museu Serralves, Porto; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson; San Francisco Art Institute; Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City; and many other public, private and independent spaces throughout the world.

Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg presented a survey exhibition of Carlos Motta’s work in 2015. In 2017 his solo exhibitions include Stedelijk Art Museum, Amsterdam and Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional at Claustro de San Agustín, Bogotá. In 2016 his solo exhibitions included: Histories of the Future, Pérez Art Museum (PAMM), Miami; REQUIEM, MALBA—Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires; Beloved Martina, Mercer Union, Toronto; Deviations, PPOW Gallery, New York; and the performance Mondo Invertito at Tenuta dello Scompiglio, Vorno. Motta will also participate in Incerteza Viva: 32nd Bienal de São Paulo in 2016.

Motta’s most recent film Deseos /رغبات , which was commissioned by Council, premiered at the Gothenburg International Biennial of Contemporary Art in September 2015 and has since screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam and other festivals. In 2015 Motta participated in group exhibitions at Migros Museum, Zürich, Les Rencontres Internationales, Berlin, MDE15—Encuentro Internacional de Arte de Medellín 5 and X Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art. In 2014 his work was also included in Under the Sun: Art from Latin America Today at Guggenheim Museum, New York and in the X Gwangju Biennale.

Motta’s work has been recently reviewed in The New York Times, Artforum, Hyperallergic, BOMB Magazine, Arte al Dia and other magazines and publications.

In 2017 Motta won The Vilcek Foundation’s Prize for Creative Promise and in 2014 the Main Prize—Future Generation Art Prize of the PinchukArtCentre. He has recently delivered talks and presentations at MoMA, Artists Space, New Museum, Frieze New York and Museo Jumex. In 2014 he delivered a keynote presentation during SF MoMA’s Visual Activism symposium in San Francisco. Motta guest edited the e-flux journal April 2013 issue, “(im)practical (im)possibilities” on contemporary queer art and culture.

Motta is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2006), was named a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow (2008), and received grants from Art Matters (2008), NYSCA (2010), Creative Capital Foundation and the Kindle Project (2012). He is part of the faculty at Parsons The New School of Design.

Last update 5th May, 2017.