Xavier Cortada

©2009 Xavier Cortada
Xavier Cortada
Xavier Cortada
Xavier Cortada has created art installations at the
North Pole (as a NYFA sponsored artist, 2008) and
South Pole (through the National Science Foundation,
2007) to help address environmental issues at every
point in between. This year, Cortada has presented
eco-art interventions in Finland, Latvia and across the
United States in Albuquerque, Grand Rapids, Miami,
Salem (MA), St. Petersburg and Tampa.
The Miami artist has been commissioned to create
art for the White House, the Florida Supreme Court,
Miami City Hall, Miami-Dade County Hall, the Museum of Florida History, the Miami Art Museum, and
the Frost Art Museum. Cortada’s work is also in the
permanent collection of The World Bank.
Cortada is also known for his international collaborative public art projects. These include International
AIDS Conference murals in Switzerland and South
Africa, peace murals in Northern Ireland and Cyprus,
and child welfare murals in Bolivia and Panama.
Corporations such as General Mills, Nike, Heineken
and Hershey’s have commissioned his art. Publishers
like McDougal and Random House have featured it in
school textbooks and publications.
Cortada, who was born in Albany, New York and grew
up in Miami, holds degrees from the University of
Miami College of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School
of Business and School of Law.
Longitudinal Installation at the South Pole, 2007 (left),
and the North Pole, 2008
©2009 Xavier Cortada
www.cortada.com
The Frost Art Museum
In 2008, Cortada won the Frost Art Museum’s public
art competition by creating 40-foot “digital tapestries”
titled after the Greek classical elements: aqua, aer,
ignis and terra. In Greek philosophy, science, and
medicine, these four elements represent “the realms
of the cosmos wherein all things exist and whereof all
things consist.”
Like the Greeks, Cortada, as an artist, seeks to find
the interconnectedness among things to gain greater
understanding. In bright colors (e.g., ignis is red,
aqua is blue) these banners suggest that, if we look
more closely at our surroundings, there are new
worlds to discover. Indeed, inside the museum, there
are works by artists who strive to push boundaries to
further human understanding.
The images of leaves on the banners belong to native
trees that at one time grew at the very location of
the Frost. Indeed, the banners do more than invite
those outside in to experience the art. They also bring
nature into the building that sits on the edge of a
natural lagoon.
Climbing up the cantilevered staircase is like climbing
the branch of a tree where one is surrounded by
“leaves.” The experience is intense and personal: if
one were looking at the details of the leaves made
of chlorophyll instead of ink, one would witness the
boundless beauty and interplay of nature at work on
every branch on that tree. The vantage point gives
one a different perspective; from that height one (can
see out the window) and imagine the tree canopy
and ecosystem that was once there. The experience
can serve as an invitation to find a more balanced
approach to coexisting with nature.
©2009 Xavier Cortada
Four Elements at the Frost Museum, 2008
The work was designed to complement the 46,000
square foot building, which is itself a work of art
designed by Yarin Weymouth, design director of
Hellmuth, Obata Kassabaum (hok). The Frost Art
Museum cost $16 million to build and includes nine
galleries and 10,000 square feet of breath-taking
gallery spaces.
www.cortada.com
Endangered World, at the North Pole, 2008
Cortada reads quotes at the South Pole, 2007
90N: North Pole Installations
Longitudinal Installation
Cortada created art installations in the North
Pole (2008) and South Pole (2007) to address
environmental issues at every point in between.
In 2008, Cortada placed 24 shoes in a circle around
the North Pole, each serving as a proxy for a person
affected by global climate change in the world below.
He placed the shoes inches apart along the respective
longitudes where these individuals live at the point
where they converge, conceptually diminishing the
distance between them.
Endangered World
In 2008, Cortada traveled by icebreaker to place the
names of 360 endangered animals in a circle around
the North Pole. Each name was aligned along their respective longitude of habitat. By reciting their names
and placing them across the 360 degrees, Cortada
aimed to reclaim the North Pole for nature and for our
planet’s biodiversity.
This installation originated from Cortada’s 2007 work,
where he planted 24 flags around the South Pole to
warn of the imminent threat to Earth’s biodiversity.
Using melted sea ice and acrylic paint, he wrote the
scientific name of an endangered species on each
flag, as well as the longitude of the habitat in which it
struggles for survival.
©2009 Xavier Cortada
After positioning the shoes, Cortada walked to each
shoe and recited a statement from a person living in
that longitude about how climate change affected or
will affect them.
Cortada first recited these statements in 2007 in
the South Pole, where he originally created the
Longitudinal Installation.
www.cortada.com
The Markers, 2007, marking time at the South Pole
Art in Antarctica
150,000 year journey
Sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s
Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, Cortada
traveled to Antarctica in 2007 to implement various
art projects.
Cortada planted an ice replica of a mangrove
seedling on the ice sheet that blankets the South
Pole. Embedded in the ice, the seedling will move 10
meters a year in the direction of the Weddell Sea. In
150,000 years, the seedling will arrive at the coastline
and theoretically set its roots.
Cortada used the moving ice sheet that blankets the
South Pole to mark time: Important events that have
moved the world forward during the past 50 years
(“The Markers”) are juxtaposed with events that
occur in broader geological time frames (“150,000year Journey”).
The Markers
Cortada planted 51 different colored flags at the
South Pole, each 10 meters apart and marking where
the South Pole stood during each of the past 50 years
(when humans first inhabited the South Pole). Each
flag also displayed the coordinates of the location on
the world above where an important event that took
place during that year.
©2009 Xavier Cortada
The 150,000 Year Journey uses the terrain of the
South Pole to address a sociological concern of the
artist: the travails of an immigrant’s journey---the
displacement, the solitude, the struggle to simply
integrate oneself into society. In a more universal
way, the 150,000 Year Journey explores humankind
as it evolves through time.
Through the 150,000 Year Journey, the artist also
invites viewers to reflect on our role as humans on
this planet. Juxtaposing Antarctic time frames with
human time frames reaffirms the notion that we are
simply custodians of the planet who should learn to
live in harmony with nature.
www.cortada.com
Reclamation ProjectUrban Reforestation
Cortada plants a flag in the North Pole to encourage
reforestation in the world below, 2008
At a time when melting polar sea ice is causing so
many to focus on which political power will place its
flag over the Arctic, controlling the Northwest Passage
shipping lanes and the petroleum resources beneath
the sea ice, Cortada developed a project that engages
people across the world below to help address global
climate change.
Reforestation helps prevent the polar regions from
melting. While Cortada’s installations at the North
Pole raised global awareness, “Native Flags,” a
participatory eco-art project, asks individuals across
the globe to act locally by planting a green flag and
native tree.
The conspicuous green flag serves as a catalyst for
conversations with neighbors and a call to action to
help rebuild our native tree canopy.
©2009 Xavier Cortada
www.cortada.com
Installation at the Miami Science Museum, 2008
The Reclamation ProjectCoastal Reforestation
The Reclamation Project aims to remind us how
South Florida was like before being urbanized, as it
explores our ability to coexist with the natural world.
The Reclamation Project, housed at the Miami
Science Museum, contains over 1,100 mangrove
seedlings currently on exhibit annually. Afterwards,
these seedlings, as well as those displayed in retail
locations across South Beach, will be planted along
Biscayne Bay, where a new mangrove colony will
eventually rebuild ecosystems both above and below
the water line.
On Earth Day 2006, Cortada launched this eco-art
intervention during the opening of a month-long
installation at the Bass Museum of Art. During its
inaugural year, 2,500 red mangrove seedlings were
adopted by retail businesses across South Beach.
©2009 Xavier Cortada
In subsequent years,
volunteers collected
seedlings from various
Miami-Dade County
locations where they would
otherwise have perished
and distributed them to retail
and commercial businesses in
South Beach. These seedlings,
displayed in clear, water-filled
cups later “reclaimed” the
island where they thrived just
a few decades ago. For more
information please visit
www.reclamationproject.net
www.cortada.com
Resume: Xavier Cortada
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITS:
2008
2008
2008
2007
2007
2006
The Green Project (concurrent with Art Basel), Miami, FL
Polar Attractions, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
EPA (Environmental Performance Actions), EXIT ART, New York, NY
Weather Report, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO
Envisioning Change, an international touring exhibit presented by the UNEP
(United Nations Environment Programme) and the Natural World Museum:
Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, Norway
BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium
Ministry of Culture, Monaco (2008)
Miami in Transition, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITS:
2007
2007
2007
2006
The Reclamation Project and Native Flags, Miami Science Museum, Miami, FL
South Pole Installations, Wolfson Center Gallery, MDC Art Galleries, Miami, FL
Antarctica, Kunsthaus Contemporary Art Space, Miami, FL
The Reclamation Project, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, FL
SELECTED PUBLIC ART PROJECTS:
2008 Art in State Buildings, Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL
2008 Monroe County Art in Public Places, Upper Keys Government Center, FL
2008 Pinellas County Art in Public Places, Florida Botanical Gardens, Largo, FL
SELECTED AWARDS:
New York Foundation for the Arts, NYFA sponsored artist, 2008
Creative Capital Professional Development Program, 2007
National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, 2006-07
EDUCATION:
December 1991 Juris Doctor
University of Miami School of Law Coral Gables, Florida.
December 1991 Master of Public Administration
University of Miami Graduate School.
December 1986 Bachelor of Arts
University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences.
SELECTED MEDIA:
Global Warnings, by Suzaan Boettger, Art in America,
Issue No. 6, p. 154-161 and 206-207, June/July 2008.
Kunsthaus Miami exhibit. Review by Milagros Bello. Published in arte al día (International Magazine of Contemporary Latin American Art), edition 119, (July 2007).
The Arts: “The Longitudinal Installation: Representing those affected by climate change.” Xavier Cortada. Resurgence, edition 243, page 32-33 (July/August 2007)
©2009 Xavier Cortada
www.cortada.com
Global Warnings, by Suzaan Boettger,
Art in America, Issue No. 6, pp. 154-161, 206-207, June/July 2008.
Excerpt from Boettger’s Global Warnings article on page 156:
Also participating in both the “Melting Ice” and “Weather Report” were the Harrisons, Jordan, Cuban American
installation artist Xavier Cortada and American video artist Andrea Polli. The last two exhibited works from
their polar projects in both shows. Cortada’s videos and 8-by-10 inch photographs document a trip to the
South Pole early in 2007 as part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers
Program. There he installed bright flags to mark human events in Antarctica during the past century. More
pertinent to the show’s theme -beyond the voguish locale for artistic expeditions-- were his documentation
and the residue of a strangely ritualistic performance in which he placed 24 identical men’s black shoes around
the South Pole. From each he drew and read a statement from an individual living in one of the world’s time
zones (such as: “I tell my wife, the day the mountain loses its snow, we’ll have to move out of the valley.”
Jose Ignacio Lambarri, farmer, Urubamba Valley, Peru).
©2009 Xavier Cortada
www.cortada.com
Xavier Cortada
3621 SW 3rd Avenue
Miami, FL 33145
305-858-1323
[email protected]
www.cortada.com
©2009 Xavier Cortada