Steve Turner is pleased to present Herida Oscura, a solo online exhibition by New York-based Carlos Martiel which features photographs that document a number of his performances over the last thirteen years. Martiel uses his body as an axis of conflict to unearth issues of race, migration, isolation, and injustice. Since 2007, he has presented ninety performances, many of which are informed by the experience of structurally oppressed and marginalized minorities throughout histories and cultures. Martiel researches these collective legacies of pain, resistance and survival to turn them into bodily rituals of self-inflicted violence and sacrifice, channeling through a visceral language his radical and candid vision of humanity’s long-standing struggle with otherness. The unapologetically blunt and poetically infused images created and embodied by the artist bear witness to the uncomfortable truths that keep shaking our societies to the core.

Carlos Martiel (born 1989, Havana) graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Havana (2009). Between 2008 and 2010, he studied in the Cátedra Arte de Conducta, directed by Tania Bruguera. His works have been included in the Sharjah Biennial; Cuenca Biennial; Venice Biennale; Casablanca Biennale; Liverpool Biennial; Pontevedra Biennial and Havana Biennial as well as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; La Tertulia Museum, Cali; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quito; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia, Maracaibo; Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, among many others. This is Martiel’s third solo exhibition with Steve Turner.