Carlos Martiel

Cuban performance artist Carlos Martiel uses his body to address the restrictions and limitations within the lived experience of the black male body. The ephemerality of performance points towards the immediacy that his subject poses, the fragility of continuing to exist is questioned by the passage of time. The perpetual threat on the body shows the persistence of the systems that are in place in our society; systems of violence, ostracization, and displacement. Martiel approaches these topics from the non-western migrant experience and specifically the identity of the black male within that conversation. The physicality of his performance alludes to the invisibility of the immigrant and black body, a body that is inextricably linked to notions of tradition, culture, and belonging. His safety, within his performance, is constantly threatened. In an act of resistance, the confrontational element of the nude stakes a claim on the space Martiel occupies–he fears, he bleeds, he lives.

Born in Cuba in 1989, Martiel is now based out of New York, New York and Havana, Cuba. Martiel graduated in 2009 from the National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro, in Havana. His work has been included in the Biennial of the Americas, USA; 4th Vancouver Biennale, Canada; 14th Sharjah Biennial, UAE; 14th Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador; 57th Venice Biennale, Italy; Casablanca Biennale, Morocco; Biennial “La Otra”, Colombia; Liverpool Biennial, UK; Pontevedra Biennial, Spain; Havana Biennial, Cuba; the São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, Brazil; and the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, USA. He performed at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; La Tertulia Museum, Cali, Colombia; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quito, Ecuador; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA; The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, USA. His works are in public collections such as The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, New York; Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami.

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