In this special commission for Frieze Week New York 2024, photographer and director Tess Ayano shoots five outstanding New York performers.
For the 2021 performance Monumento II, Carlos Martiel stood for two hours on a pedestal in the rotunda of the Guggenheim: naked, handcuffed and immobile, a living memorial to injustice. Born in Havana, Martiel has taken part in biennials from Venice to Vancouver, Cuenca to Casablanca, but this May sees the Cuban American artist’s New York homecoming with “Cuerpo” at El Museo del Barrio. His first solo exhibition in the city, the survey details the artist’s commitment to intensive, durational performance and efforts to make the operations of power viscerally apparent: in 2023’s Nobody, a flagpole becomes a whipping post. “Cuerpo” results from Martiel’s receipt of the Maestro Dobel Latinx Prize, supported by Maestro Dobel Tequila.
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FRIEZE, New York.