Small forms of resistance

The work of Carlos Motta from the MACBA Collection, Nefandus, follows two men as they canoe down the Don Diego River in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in the Colombian Caribbean, surrounded by a ‘wild’ and beautiful landscape. The work is a part of a trilogy that investigates pre-Hispanic and colonial homoeroticism. Motivated by his interest in historical marginalisation and violence against collectives and communities, Carlos Motta has created this video essay documenting the forced imposition of European epistemological categories during and after the conquest of the Americas.  

But the MACBA Collection also has another work by Carlos Motta, Gravity (2024). As the artist himself explains: “Gravity is a performance video developed in close collaboration with the performers, and it presents a sequence of performative actions where the performers find cautious and tender ways to hold, carry, and endure the weight of their bodies as long as they are able, creating scenes of sustained endurance. (…) Gravity poses the question: What does it take to support a life?”  

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Son[i]a #391 – Carlos Motta

Son[i]a

1:21:19

Exhibition

The exhibition “Pleas of Resistance” traverses more than twenty-five years of practice by the artist Carlos Motta, who consistently engages with the body and sexual dissidence as a terrain of experimentation and political contestation.

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