Interview with Carlos Martiel.

Original in Spanish: http://www.gtcultura.com/entrevista-a-carlos-martiel/

Translated by Rodrigo Arenas-Carter

We spoke with the Cuban artist, a day before his performance in Proyecto Poporopo.

Rodrigo Arenas-Carter/Manuel Tzoc: Speaking about your beginnings, what was your main motivation
to start working in performance art?

Carlos Martiel: In 2007 I was in the art academy, concentrated on drawing with pigments modified
with vinegar, coffee, blood, and all kind of unconventional materials. Then, I focused myself in
drawing with blood. But it was problematic, because I had to go to the polyclinic to ask someone to
draw me blood. There were days when I got the amount of blood I needed, but not all the time. This
made me realize how important the body is for me.

RAC/MT: In your firsts pieces, the sea plays a key role. What is the origin of that interest in it?

CM: First of all I am Cuban, and in Cuba we are conditioned by the insular nature. Maybe, because
there's no other country in the world where living in an island makes you a prisoner of the state. At
some moment, if you were a common citizen, you were not allowed to go abroad, becoming yourself
an island too. This situation clashed with my desire to extend myself and to grow. Also, this situation
has a big amount of drama, because the option you have is to throw yourself to the sea, something that
led a lot of people to death.

RAC/MT: Following that topic, but referring to your most recent pieces, we have detected the regular
use of sharpen objects as needles, medals, in the skin as a grammatical resource. Where does this idea
comes from?

CM: When I started, I focused myself a lot in the rites of tribal initiation, in which men are subjected to
sacrifices, in order to integrate them to society. All of this helped me to understand my own body,
taking into account that, during those days, I had the same age as those men. Previously, I worked with
threads and needles. Anyway, I think that the use of those elements is a closed chapter for me.

RAC/MT: What motivates you to do a piece about Garífuna People?

CM: I feel that there are some things that I have to speak about, because I'm black, and because history
has been very distorted and unfair. I see how our continent, specially Center and South America, has
black people marginalized in the coast and in the ghettos. Usually, the happiness of those people arises
but, which is the origin of that joy? The origin is in having nothing, is in being on the verge, is in
creating a world and believing in that world.

When I got the invitation to come to Guatemala, I thought about which piece I could present. I am not
interested in talking about violence, because there are Guatemalan artists that already are doing that in
a very good way. But, I feel related to the Garífuna topic. You should think that I come from Jamaican
and Haitian migrants that got together in Cuba.

RAC/MT: Regarding the topic of immigration, how do you see the worldwide situation of immigrants?
CM: If the world doesn't change, we are fucked up. From a very personal point of view, the only
difference of being here instead of Ecuador, it is a flag. Nations are a forced thing, because the world is
being modified, but the borders generate massive deaths in Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. The
planet evolves and people move because we have been always nomads. And nations doesn't know what
to do, because they have been so structured largely around the idea of delimiting their areas, that this
world has no destiny if we keep following that path.

RAC/MT: Talking more about Latin America, and now that you're living in NYC. Do you perceive that
Latin American performance art has some particularities that make it different from the rest? It's a
personal theory [Rodrigo's], mainly based in the idea that, in our culture, the everyday relationship with
our bodies is stronger, not leaving aside our rites, among other reasons.

CM: There are differences, mainly because we are talking about different contexts. I don't enjoy so
much going to see performance in NYC, because there I think that the relationship with the body is
more objectual, more external, and the oral aspect has a lot of relevance. Reading poetry is considered
performance art. I don't see in the performance art field activity in NYC a direct relationship with the
body. Sometimes, this also happens is Latin America, but in this case I perceive a closer relationship
with the body. However, I don't like to categorize.

RAC/MT: Let's move to the topic of the working conditions among performance art artists. Recently,
the topic about copyrights in this area has become important, because of the lawsuits from Orlan to
Lady Gaga, and from Ulay to Marina Abramovic. What is your vision about this?

CM: I haven't thought about this issue, maybe because now exists a culture of copy. There is so much
information, so many images, and so little time to reflect about them, that anything that is put in front
of your eyes is perceived as new. On the other side, there is a notion that nothing is new. All of this
benefits appropriation, something that is valid in art.

RAC/MT: And, regarding the never-ending image and information stream, don't you think that it forces
performance art professionals to, instead of developing an interesting piece where the shock value is
subordinated to the piece itself, focus in just making a shocking one?

CM: Shock value has always existed, and it has helped to make performance art relevant. Lot of times,
I have proposed projects where my body is not harmed, and they have been rejected. There is a chiché
about performance art as visceral and I, when I started, did what I did because I felt it. Almost all my
work originates from my life experience, even when I'm talking about others.