The Brooklyn Rail

Three years ago at El Museo del Barrio, Afro-Cuban performance artist Carlos Martiel performed Monumento I (2021), part of his acclaimed “Monumento” series where, following actions varying by context, he stoically embodies a temporary monument to histories of oppression. In this inaugural piece, he stood atop a white pedestal, covered to his shoulders in blood sourced from bodies belonging to minority or marginalized groups in the United States, his nude body exposed in the middle of the empty gallery space. The artwork resonated with the events of the summer of 2020, marked by the eruption of Black Lives Matter protests following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others. Now, photographic and video documentation of Monumento I alongside its subsequent iterations returns to El Museo as part of Martiel’s first solo show in New York, Cuerpo. Through his performances, Martiel orchestrates situations of physical and psychological duress, allowing him to embody and make visible the oppression that has shaped the lived experiences of migrant, Latinx, and Black communities, among others. Cuerpo offers a mid-career survey of two decades of his key performances, featuring photographs, videos, and preparatory drawings.

Early in his career, Martiel’s work concentrated on the lived experiences of Black and immigrant populations in Cuba. In Prodigal Son (2010), one of the earlier works on display, Martiel pierces his chest with all the medals for patriotic acts his dad was awarded by the Cuban state. As these decorations draw blood, he stares ahead with regimental stillness. The steadily self-inflicted violence he subjects himself to functions like an abject cipher of the callous mechanisms of military violence and service, rewarded with portentous recognition.

Martiel’s artistic focus has since expanded to encompass the United States, where he has resided since 2013. Works reflecting on the current political landscape of the US carry a critical edge as sharp as the physical demands he imposes on his own body. In South Body (2019), Martiel pierced his shoulder with an American flag and assumed a fetal position on the floor, while in Intruder (America) (2018) he stood atop a map of the US made of anti-climb spikes, serving as commentary on the hostile immigration policies and xenophobia faced by immigrants and asylum seekers in this country. A preparatory drawing of Time (2022) shows him standing, with an American flag on a flagpole resting on his shoulders, a position he is meant to stay in “until the weight and exhaustion brings [him] to [his] knees.” In such pieces, the duration of the performance becomes a form of measurement for a resilience not exclusively of the artist’s physical body, but also a social corpus in the face of systemic racial adversity.

Performing primarily in the nude, Martiel employs his body as a site of social meaning, occasionally positioned in situations of vulnerability rather than self-inflicted harm, as seen in the eponymous piece Cuerpo (2022). Here, he hangs from the ceiling with a noose around his neck, while various individuals take turns supporting him to prevent his asphyxiation. As the performance progresses and those supporting Martiel grow tired, the effort to hold him up becomes increasingly imbalanced and suspenseful. At El Museo, the video of Cuerpo is displayed on a screen positioned on the floor, leaning against the wall in a way that mirrors the falling weight and unease of Martiel’s frame. Asphyxiation carries significant historical and contemporary weight for Black bodies in the US, yet Martiel relinquishes the burden of its symbol to others, orchestrating them to endure it through his proxy body.

In Monumento II (Monument II) (2021) Martiel stood nude atop a 50-inch-tall pedestal in the center of the Guggenheim Museum’s rotunda, his arms handcuffed behind him. Remaining immobile for hours, Martiel subjected himself to the scrutiny of the audience. Where viewers circled around Martiel in the original performance, in this exhibition, we find him photographed from below, framed by the rotunda, simulating the panoptic gaze of American surveillance and policing of Black bodies. The “Monument” series as a whole subverts the conventions of traditional monuments, eschewing permanence for ephemeral, living expressions. Yet, it cleverly retains elements of monumental stoicism, serving as an allegorical facade for underlying themes of violence behind typical commemorated figures. Martiel’s counter-monumental performances bear witness to often overlooked narratives, as seen in Transfiguración (Monumento III) (2021), where Martiel holds the organs of an animal, spilling over his arms like a sacrificial offering. Performed in Mexico, it was meant to serve as a monument to the bodies subjugated and undermined by violence in Mexico on the basis of class, gender, and race. Watching Martiel's performances can be an uneasy and complex experience, markedly more colored by affect than traditional monuments and the detachment they might offer. Where conventional monuments invite passive observation of history, Martiel brings about situations that make us bear witness to allegorical, yet very real and embodied, pain and anguish.

The exhibition’s wall texts consist of performance instructions authored by Martiel himself, like the one quoted earlier, and maintain a first-person perspective. Such presentational procedures emphasize the artist's agency and viewpoint—crucial within a performance practice where object and subject often overlap—and ensure that Martiel's voice remains central and authentic in the presentation of his work. In such an exhibition so concerned with the artist's body, which remains absent or merely represented through photographic documentation, we can consider the artist’s frame beyond the immediate physicality that performance art often affords. Cuerpo spills into multiple meanings, encompassing Martiel's body, personhood, medium, oeuvre, and, potentially, archive as well. If endurance art drives artists to extremes, Martiel's frame bears the proof.