Carlos Motta
Carlos Motta was born in 1978 in Bogota
He lives and works in New York
Carlos Motta’s multi-disciplinary art practice documents the social conditions and political struggles of sexual, gender, and ethnic minority communities in order to challenge dominant and normative discourses through visibility and self-representation. As a historian of untold narratives and an archivist of repressed histories, Motta is committed to in-depth research on the struggles of post-colonial subjects and societies. His work manifests in a variety of mediums including video, installation, sculpture, drawing, web-based projects, performance, and symposia.
His work was the subject of survey exhibitions at MACBA, Barcelona (2025); MAMBO, Bogotá (2023); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2022); Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín (2017); Matucana 100, Santiago (2018); and Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg, Sweden (2015). His solo exhibitions at international museums also include PICA, Portland (2020); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); PAMM, Miami (2016); MALBA, Buenos Aires (2016); PinchukArtCentre, Kiev (2015); Tate Modern, London (2013); Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City (2013); New Museum, New York (2012); MoMA/PS1, New York (2009); and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2008), among others.
Motta’s work was included in collective international shows such as the 60th Venice Biennale (2024); the 58th Carnegie International, USA (2022); the 11th Berlin Biennale (2020); the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2016); the Göteborg Biennial of Contemporary Art (2015); the 10th Gwangju Biennale (2014); the 2nd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (2010); and the Lyon Biennale (2010).
He also participated to numerous collective exhibitions in international institutions such as the ICA Los Angeles (2024); San José Museum of Art (2024); MoMA, New York (2023); Wellcome Collection, London (2023); Kunsthalle Wien (2021); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2020); SF MoMA (2019); ICA Boston (2019); Migros Museum, Zurich (2015, 2019); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2018); SCAD, Savannah (2018); MASP, Sao Paulo (2017); LACE, Los Angeles (2017); MALI, Lima (2017); CAC Vilnius (2016); MUMA, Melbourne (2016); HKW, Berlin (2015); Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2015); Jeu de Paume, Paris (2014); and Guggenheim Museum, New York (2011), among many others. His films have been screened at the Film at Lincoln Center, New York (2021); Rotterdam Film Festival (2010, 2016); Toronto International Film Festival (2013); and Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (2016).
Carlos Motta has been awarded the Artist Impact Initiative x Creative Time R&D Fellowship (2023); the Vilcek Foundation’s Prize for Creative Promise (2017); the PinchukArtCentre’s Future Generation Art Prize (2014); and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008).
A comprehensive monograph of his work, Carlos Motta: History’s Backrooms, was published by SKIRA in 2020. His work is featured in Phaidon’s 2023 anthology of Latin American Artists.
