Multi-Talented Artist Carlos Betancourt

CARLOS BETANCOURT (born in San Juan, Puerto Rico 1966) is a multi-disciplinary artist.  His artworks explore issues of memory, and his own experiences, while also dwelling on issues of nature, the environment and matters of beauty, identity, and communication. By means of re-examination, he recycles and reinterprets the past by delivering it in a fresh and new relevant context.

Betancourt’s artwork is part of public collections such as the Smithsonian’ National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas; New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana; Palm Springs Art Museum, California; Bass Museum of Art, Florida; Perez Art Museum Miami, Florida; and Museo de Arte Ponde, Puerto Rico. His work is exhibited in various galleries as well as art fairs such as Art Basel and Arco. He is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the Florida Department of State Millennium Cultural Recognition Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, Bas-Fisher Invitational Grant, the Florida Prize on Contemporary Art People Choice Award, and the Miami Beach Arts Council Grant. He has worked as a curator, furniture designer, and has collaborated in architectural and site-specific private and public commissions with architect Alberto Latorre.

”Carlos Betancourt: Imperfect Utopia” (Skira/Rizzoli 2015) explores Betancourt’s body of work with more than 250 images and text by Robert Farris Thompson, dean of the history of Art Department at Yale University, Inaugural poet Richard Blanco, and writer and art critic Paul Laster.  The artist has participated in several book events in museums and institutions nationally and internationally, as well as dialogues with Richard Blanco, Warhol Museum chief curator Jose Diaz, and Bonnie Clearwater, director of NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, among others.  The book is currently in the second printing.  It was also selected as Art Book of the month by Interview magazine.

Re-Collections, a mid-career retrospective of the artist artworks, opened at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (MAC) in San Juan, Puerto Rico in November 2015. Spread through six different galleries and the Museum’s main atrium, the exhibit included more than 50 works, including several installations, such as the recreation of En La Arena Sabrosa (2004), a floor piece consisting of hundreds of Dixie-cups sand castles made with sand and soil from the beaches and rivers of Puerto Rico.  Like the book, the exhibit received excellent reviews and was selected as Art Forum Magazine Critic’s Pick.

During Art Basel Miami Beach 2016, The Pelican Passage Tide by Side, a large artwork commissioned by the Faena Arts District in celebration of the opening of Rem Koolhaas Faena Forum, was chosen by Vogue magazine as one of the top five Art Basel artworks.

In June 2017, the artist was invited as a speaker for TEDxRVA TED Talks in Richmond, Virginia.  The presentation, titled “The Art of Memory,” focused on the artist’s artwork and revolved around the theme of memory and change.

In November 2021, Betancourt presented  a large-scale digital projection in downtown Miami titled “Into the Everglades.”The video was part of an effort with various non-for-profit organizations to promote the culture, flora and fauna of the Everglades and bring attention to the fragile and unique environment, including the endangered Florida Panther.  In December 2021, “Milagros!”, a temporal installation commissioned by the City of Miami Beach, was unveiled during Art Basel week.  The installation is composed of hundreds of suspended metal elements inspired by ex-votos and tamata  charms of Mexico and Greece.  The sculptural elements were fabricated by local artisans in Oaxaca, Mexico. Also in December 2021, the artist present “What Lies Beneath: Tipping Point,” which consists of a huge inflatable shaped as an iceberg, placed in a swimming pool. The fundraising project for “The Reefline,” (a future underwater public sculpture park and artificial snorkel reef),  was sponsored by Faena Arts and Algoram, curated by Ximena Caminos.  These projects, as well as the artist’s recent artwork series titled “Landscapes Re-Imagined” (2020-21), were prominently featured in an article in the New York Times (11/24/21) written by Bret Sokol.

Betancourt is co-founder of 801 Projects, an arts studio center that provides studio space for visual artists based in Miami.  He has also been actively involved in the preservation of the Miami Marine Stadium, a mid-century architectural masterpiece in Key Biscayne, Florida.

Betancourt and Alberto Latorre established the Betancourt-Latorre foundation in 2017.  A 501(c) organization, its main goal is to help support artists based in Miami and the Caribbean basin. In October of the same year, the organization raised and collected supplies that were quickly donated to those affected by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. In 2020, the Betancourt-Latorre foundation awarded more than $30,000 in grants to artists that have been affected economically by the Covid-19 pandemic.  The foundation is currently raising funds for its next project: “South Beach: Art, Culture and the Last Underground,” a book and exhibition focusing on the influential art and culture of Miami from the 1980s to the present.

The artist’s new studio, designed in collaboration with architect Alberto Latorre, is located in Little River, Miami Beach.

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