BARCELONA.- Curated by María Berríos and Agustín Pérez-Rubio, Pleas of Resistance is the first major European museum exhibition dedicated to Carlos Motta (Bogota, 1978). The MACBA exhibition highlights the artist’s commitment to social justice and activism with works that address discrimination in increasingly conservative political environments (such as in the United States), queer people and Latin American decolonization projects. Known for his use of mise-en-scène, the artist carefully balances powerful content, poetic language, and meticulous aesthetics in his transdisciplinary practice.

A resident of New York for many years, the artist began his career in the 1990s and is an important figure in contemporary art. The work engages with the politics of gender identity and sexuality, giving voice to dissident expressions in the face of dominant normative discourses. This permeates all of his work, which pivots on two dialogical axes: intersectionality and queerness.

Featuring over twenty-five years of artistic practice, Pleas of Resistance combines early photographic self-portraits with more recent video performances and installations presented in four intersectional chapters. The exhibition focuses on Motta’s rigorous artistic research and his continuous questioning of the archive – its violence and silencing, its fears and desires. His work challenges the imposition of Eurocentric epistemologies – from the time of the conquest and colonial period in the Americas to the present day – and considers the legacy of religion as a perpetrator and disruptive vehicle of coloniality.

The exhibition pays close attention to Motta’s engagement with political histories and social justice movements – especially the hiv/aids epidemic – and their contemporary manifestations on the fragility of bodies, both in terms of collective and individual representation.

Pleas of Resistance provides a unique opportunity for an in-depth look at the artist’s work and some of the pieces that have made him an important reference for combining artistic practice and political activism, such as We Who Feel Differently (2012), which addresses LGBTQIA2S+ movements; Legacy (2019), which reflects upon the impact of AIDS; Jjagɨyɨ Air of Life (2023), a collaborative multimedia installation that examines experiences of marginalization and the intersectional repercussions of colonialism; the installation When I Leave This World (2022), which shows the performance of a person who adopts an animal aesthetic; and Nefandus (2013 - 2014), a video trilogy that investigates pre-Hispanic and colonial homoeroticism, one of which is part of the MACBA collection.