“Martiel’s long-standing performance practice, in which he uses his own body and often places himself in positions of duress, addresses legacies of colonialism, violence, and exploitation. Martiel’s powerful works ask the viewer to confront the embodied brutality of history and of our moment.“- jurors Eileen Jeng Lynch, Director of Curatorial Programs, The Bronx Museum, and Diana Nawi, Independent Curator.

Martiel’s work can be characterized as endurance art. His artistic practice uses his own body, in order to draw attention to the embodied experience of Blackness under systems of violence and exploitation. Thematically, his works explore racism, gender, immigration, and the legacy of European colonialism in the USA.

Carlos Martiel (1989, Havana) Lives and works in New York. His works have been included in 57th Venice Biennale, Italy and he has had performances at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and El Museo del Barrio in NYC, The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and The Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH). His works are in public collections such as The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, The Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (AEIVA), the ASU Art Museum.