Xavier Cortada: A Socially Engaged Artist in 2025

Editor’s Note: We previously published a video conversation with Xavier Cortada in October, 2017. You can watch Mr. Cortada discuss his life and career here: https://artspeak.fiu.edu/video-categories/xavier-cortada/
Miami’s pioneer eco-artist, XAVIER CORTADA, has created more than 150 public artworks, installations, and collaborative murals across six continents. The Florida Artists Hall of Fame inductee is the only artist to create work at both of the Earth’s poles.
Cortada has also worked with groups globally to produce numerous collaborative art projects, including peace murals in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, child welfare murals in Bolivia and Panama, AIDS murals in Switzerland and South Africa, juvenile justice murals and projects in Miami and Philadelphia, and eco-art projects in Taiwan, Hawaii, and Holland.
Cortada has been commissioned to create art for CERN, the White House, the World Bank, Florida Botanical Gardens, Miami City Hall, Miami-Dade County Hall, the Florida Turnpike, Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, Miami-Dade Housing Authority, the Frost Science Museum, Museum of Florida History, the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, among many other art, science, and government venues.
His work is in the permanent collections of the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the NSU Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale, the Whatcom Museum, the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, and the MDC Museum of Art + Design, among others.
Cortada served as the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for Miami-Dade County (2022-2024) and has been invited to participate in artist-in-residency programs including the Home & Away Residency, Anderson Ranch, Aspen, Colorado (2022); New York Foundation for the Arts fiscally-sponsored artist (2008 and 2019); Rauschenberg Residency: Rising Waters Confab, Captiva, Florida (2015); the Kaohsiung International Container Art Festival, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2011), and the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program, South Pole (2006-2007).
Cortada was born in Albany, New York. The son of Cuban exiles, he grew up in Miami from the age of three. The artist holds three degrees from the University of Miami: Bachelor of Arts, College of Arts and Sciences (1986), Master of Public Administration, Miami Herbert Business School (1991), and Juris Doctor, School of Law (1991). He also served as a professor of practice at UM in the Department of Art and Art History, with secondary appointments at the medical and law schools. He is currently a Research Fellow for Princeton University Center for Migration and Development.
The videos below are organized by Success Factor, and run between 30 seconds and 13 minutes. Click on any video. You must be connected to the Internet to view the videos.
CRITICAL THINKING: 7:50 min.
EXPOSURE TO BROAD INFLUENCES: 4:03 min.
CRITICAL THINKING: 12:15 min.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 8:15 min.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 11:15 min.
CRITICAL THINKING: 9:25 min.
CRITICAL THINKING: 4:26 min.
CRITICAL THINKING: 9:59 min.
CREATIVE FLEXIBILITY: 7:24 min.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 5:34 min.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 3:14 min.