ExhibitionAugust 22, 2022
Carlos Motta: Your Monsters, Our Idols
Carlos Motta: Your Monsters, Our Idols is the upcoming exhibition of the Wexner Center for the Arts, a multidisciplinary institution belonging to the Ohio State University. The solo show is the most comprehensive display of Carlos Motta's work that has been held in the United States, a country in which the Colombian artist currently lives and develops his artwork. The exhibition was curated by Lucy I. Zimmerman, associate curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
Carlos Motta's work is a critical commentary on the oppressions and marginal lives to which the queer community has been subjected. In this same line, the artist describes himself as "a historian of untold narratives and archivist of repressed histories." His work goes beyond the immediate present of the LGBTQIA+ issue since past and present meet in his artistic production. The exhibition Carlos Motta: Your Monsters, Our Idols brings together photographs, films, sculptures, drawings, and installations that the artist produced from the late 1990s to the present. This panoramic vision of Motta's artistic production allows differentiation of the two main themes in the artist's work: postcolonial subjectivity and democratic participation.
Throughout the exhibition, it becomes clear how Motta's work is an attempt to reveal the systems of oppression that people face in the LGBTQIA+ community. But, at the same time, Motta's work is a possibility of creating new contra-narratives. Motta's gesture of self-representation works as a mechanism to fight against the hegemonic, stigmatizing, and violent definitions created around the queer community.
The exhibition Carlos Motta: Your monsters, our idols will be opened on September 16 and will have open doors until December 30, 2022. A virtual conversation between Carlos Motta and Ana María Reyes, moderated by Lucy I. Zimmerman, will be held on October 26 (6:00 p.m). This event will be streamed for free on wexarts.org.
Carlos Motta's work is a critical commentary on the oppressions and marginal lives to which the queer community has been subjected. In this same line, the artist describes himself as "a historian of untold narratives and archivist of repressed histories." His work goes beyond the immediate present of the LGBTQIA+ issue since past and present meet in his artistic production. The exhibition Carlos Motta: Your Monsters, Our Idols brings together photographs, films, sculptures, drawings, and installations that the artist produced from the late 1990s to the present. This panoramic vision of Motta's artistic production allows differentiation of the two main themes in the artist's work: postcolonial subjectivity and democratic participation.
Throughout the exhibition, it becomes clear how Motta's work is an attempt to reveal the systems of oppression that people face in the LGBTQIA+ community. But, at the same time, Motta's work is a possibility of creating new contra-narratives. Motta's gesture of self-representation works as a mechanism to fight against the hegemonic, stigmatizing, and violent definitions created around the queer community.
The exhibition Carlos Motta: Your monsters, our idols will be opened on September 16 and will have open doors until December 30, 2022. A virtual conversation between Carlos Motta and Ana María Reyes, moderated by Lucy I. Zimmerman, will be held on October 26 (6:00 p.m). This event will be streamed for free on wexarts.org.
