Exhibitions

PinchukArtCentre is pleased to present Carlos Motta: Patriots, Citizens, Lovers..., a solo exhibition by the 2014 Future Generation Art Prize winner Carlos Motta that will premiere the artist's FGAP-commissioned installation Patriots, Citizens, Lovers... (2015) in dialogue with his celebrated multi-media installation We Who Feel Differently (2012).

Motta's work is known for his engagement with histories of queer culture and activism and for its insistence that the politics of sex and gender represent an opportunity to articulate definite positions against social and political injustice. Interested in queer autonomy and self-representation, Motta's projects question the social assimilation (or lack thereof) of queer issues into mainstream society by creating a context for the perspectives of many individuals and groups who fight against inherently discriminatory traditions and institutions.

Produced with funds from the Future Generation Art Prize, Patriots, Citizens, Lovers...  (2015) was developed in conversation with Ukrainian journalist Maxim Ivanukha and is composed of ten urgent interviews with Ukrainian LGBTI and queer activists who discuss the critical and dire situation of lesbian, gay, trans and intersex lives in Ukraine in times of war.

Confronted with innumerable challenges, Ukrainian LGBTI citizens are vulnerable targets of a violent homophobic rhetoric and remain largely under-recognized in a context that deems sexual and gender issues minor in light of the serious Ukrainian economic and political crisis. Social invisibility, physical and psychological abuse, political violence, and a deeply patriarchal culture frame the context for the difficult work of LGBTI activists who denounce discrimination and demand the transformation of the system.

Patriots, Citizens, Lovers… (2015) features testimonies by Alexander Zinchenkov, Anonymous, Anatoliy Yerema, Maxim Eristavi, Nina Verbytskaya, Olena Shevchenko, Oksana, Yuriy Frank, Yuri Yoursky and Zoryan Kis and Tymur Levchuk. These eleven courageous Ukrainians relentless activism greatly contributes to the formation of a new and democratic post-Revolution of Dignity Ukraine.

As a way of providing a historical and wider global context around queer discourses and culture for the Ukrainian public, the exhibition also presents Motta's installation We Who Feel Differently (2012), which includes thorough conversions with American, Colombian, Norwegian and South Korean LGBTI and queer academics, activists, artists, lawyers, medical doctors and others, about the development of international sexual of gender politics in the last forty years. Part archive, part documentary and part manifesto, this project is an important reflection on some of the most contested topics our times.

In 2016 the work of Carlos Motta (b. 1978, Bogotá, Colombia) will be presented in solo exhibitions at MALBA—Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Pérez Art Museum (PAMM), Miami, USA; Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada; Hordaland kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway; PPOW Gallery, New York, USA; and Instituto de Visión, Bogotá, Colombia.

The exhibition is curated by Bjorn Geldhof, Deputy Artistic Director, PinchukArtCentre.