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Carlos Motta: We The Enemy
curated by Rachel Nelson
Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery
January 23 - May 23, 2020
Opening Reception, January 23, 5—7 p.m.
Experience the exhibition online here
UC Santa Cruz Institute of the Arts and Sciences (IAS) and Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery are pleased to present Carlos Motta: We The Enemy, the first West Coast solo exhibition of artworks by the internationally acclaimed artist. Carlos Motta (b.1978, Colombia; lives in New York) works across media in installation, film, photography, and sculpture to trace connections between current political crises and repressive notions of gender and sexuality.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Motta and Rachel Nelson, IAS curator and interim director, have organized a 2-day symposium “Bodies at the Borders.” Taking place January 24, 2020 at UC Santa Cruz and January 25, 2020 at SFMOMA, where Motta also has work also on display,* “Bodies at the Borders” brings together scholars, activists, artists, filmmakers, and poets to engage the politics of borders as they intersect with issues of sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, and race.
*The first chapter of Carlos Motta’s new project on LGBTQIA+ Dreamers is on view as part of Soft Power at SFMOMA October 26-February 17, 2020.
Related Events:
Bodies at the Borders
Co-organized by Carlos Motta and Rachel Nelson
January 24, 9:30 a.m.—6 p.m.
UC Santa Cruz, Digital Arts Research Center 108
January 25, 9:30 a.m.—5:30 p.m.
SFMOMA, Phyllis Wattis Theater
Both We The Enemy and the accompanying symposium question—and challenge—how productions of difference come to countenance oppression.
The video installations and performance documentation in We The Enemy bring together histories suppressed, untold, and unspeakable, including the persecution of LGBTQIA+ individuals during the colonial project, current border politics, issues of theology and the church, and the history of medical research and HIV/AIDS.
Carlos Motta (b. 1978) was born in Bogotá, Colombia and lives and works in New York City. Motta has been the subject of survey exhibitions including at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Colombia, Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile, and Röda Sten Konsthall, Göteborg, Sweden. His work is in the permanent collections of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Barcelona; and Museo de Arte de Banco de la República, Bogotá, among others.His solo exhibitions include Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo (2019); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2016); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2016); PinchukArtCentre, Kiev (2015); Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City (2013); New Museum, New York (2012); MoMA PS1, New York (2009); and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2009). Motta participated in 32 Bienal de São Paulo (2016); X Gwangju Biennale (2014); and X Lyon Biennale (2010). His films have been screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival (2016, 2010); Toronto International Film Festival (2013); and Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (2016); among others. Motta has been awarded the Vilcek Foundation's Prize for Creative Promise (2017); the PinchukArtCentre's Future Generation Art Prize (2014); and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008).
Collaborators and sponsors for Carlos Motta: We The Enemy and related events include the Center for Cultural Studies, Lionel Cantú Queer Resource Center, and the Arts Division. Carlos Motta: We The Enemy has been generously funded by the Nion McEvoy Family Fund, Rowland and Pat Rebele, and annual donors to the Institute of the Arts and Sciences and the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery.
Press
‘We The Enemy’ solo show by artist Carlos Motta explores the politics of borders