Clifford Owens and Carlos Martiel in Conversation
Thursday, October 27, 2016
6 to 8pm
Clifford Owens, Anthology (Maren Hassinger), 2011. [Image Description: Performance artist Clifford Owens sits nude on a gray concrete floor. Surrounding him are clothed people with four of them touching his shoulders, right arm, and left leg with their hands. Behind them is a large white wall.]
As a follow up event to Carlos Martiel’s performance Maze, Clifford Owens interviewed Martiel on October 27 at The 8th Floor. Owens' guided the conversation to expose the relationship between Martiel’s practice and performance art of the 1960s, namely, body art. Together the two artists discussed Martiel’s artworks, including Ruins and Expulsion (both 2015), both featured in Enacting Stillness, and reflected on the implications of Martiel’s performance of Maze.
Bios
Carlos Martiel (born 1989, Havana) lives and works in New York and Havana. He graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts “San Alejandro” in Havana, 2009. Between the years 2008-2010, he studied in the Cátedra Arte de Conducta, directed by the artist Tania Bruguera. Martiel’s works have been included in: Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba; Pontevedra Biennial, Galicia, Spain; Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, United Kingdom; Biennial “La Otra”, Bogotá, Colombia; International Performance Art Biennale, Houston, USA; and Casablanca Biennale, Casablanca, Morocco. He has had solo exhibitions and performances at Y Gallery, New York, USA; Samsøn Projects, Boston, USA; Robert Miller Gallery, New York, USA; Steve Turner, Los Angeles, USA; Axenéo7, Gatineau, Canadá; Nitsch Museum, Naples, Italy; Lux Gallery, Guatemala City, Guatemala; and Contemporary Art Center “Wifredo Lam”, Havana, Cuba. He has received several awards including Franklin Furnace Fund in New York, USA, 2016; CIFOS Grants & Commissions Program Award in Miami, USA, 2014; and Arte Laguna in Venice, Italy, 2013. His work has been exhibited at Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy; Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece; Tornielli Museum, Ameno, Italy; Estonian Museum of Art and Design,Tallinn, Estonia; and Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Argentina, among others.
Clifford Owens’ art has appeared in numerous group and solo exhibitions. His solo exhibitions include Anthology: Clifford Owens at Museum of Modern Art PS1, New York (2011-2012), Better the Rebel You Know at Home, Manchester, England (2014), and Perspectives 173: Clifford Owens atContemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2011). His many group exhibitions include Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at the Contemporary Arts Museum (2012 – 2014), Greater New York 2005 at the Museum of Modern Art PS1 (2005), Freestyle at Studio Museum in Harlem (2001), and Performance Now (2013 – 2014).
Owens studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rutgers University, and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. He has received numerous grants and fellowships including the William H. Johnson Prize, the Art Matters Grant, the Louis Tiffany Comfort Award, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the Lambent Fellowship in the Arts, the Rutgers University Ralph Bunche Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, and the Pennies from Heaven Fund of the New York Community Trust. Publications, reviews, and interviews about his work have been featured in The New York Times, Art + Auction, Village Voice, Modern Painters, Art in America, Artforum,The New Yorker, BOMB, The Wall Street Journal, The Drama Review, Greater New York 2005, Performa: New Visual Art Performance, Rethinking Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education, and Why Art Photography?. He has written for exhibition catalogues, The New York Times, Artforum, and Performing Arts Journal. His project Anthology is the subject of his first book.
He has been visiting artist faculty and guest critic at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Yale University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Princeton University, New York University, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has been an Artist-in-Residence at Studio Museum in Harlem (2005-2006), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2004), Pioneer Works (2014), and Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program (2016-2017).
Owens lives and works in New York City and is represented by INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, located in New York City.