Multimedio offers a selection of works by Carlos Martiel that reflect directly or indirectly on the idea of “expulsion.” The homonymous work by the Cuban artist, which is included in the documentation published in this issue, stages the moment in which the twelve stars of the European flag, sewn by their five ends onto the artist’s skin, are removed from his body and discarded. This document of fragility and pain highlights the intimacy of the coercive process of citizenship and the racialized violence of its denial in Europe, the Americas, and the rest of the world.

About the artist

Carlos Martiel (1989) lives and works in New York and Havana. He graduated in 2009 from the National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro in Havana. Between the years 2008-2010, he attended the seminar on Conduct Art directed by the artist Tania Bruguera. His work has participated in multiple biennials around the world, among them, the Venice Biennale; the Casablanca Biennial; the Biennial “La Otra” in Bogota; the Liverpool Biennale; the Biennial of Havana, etc. He has performed at the Robert Miller Gallery in New York; at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach; at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (MFAH); at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Zulia (MACZUL), Maracaibo, among many others venues. He has also received several international awards, including the Franklin Furnace Fund in New York (2016); the CIFOS Grants and Commissions Program Award, in Miami (2014); and the Laguna Art Prize of Venice (2013).