Juan Cortés
Bio
Born in 1989, Juan Cortés lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia as an audiovisual artist and lecturer in Art and Audiovisual Media at the University of Los Andes, Colombia. Cortés has exhibited both nationally and internationally, performing in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Center for the Arts (CMA), Madrid, Spain; Bilbao Exhibition Center, Spain; Fridman Gallery, New York; NYC Creative Tech Week; and Centquatre-Paris, France. He is cofounder and curator of the RADAR Video Art Festival and the SATELLITE Festival of Sound Art, and regularly works with the Hyphen-Hub space for artistic and community creation. He is the recipient of numerous awards such as the VII Bogotá Prize for Alternative Art Spaces in Colombia and the prestigious PRAC Grant of the Ministry of Culture of Colombia. In 2016, he received an Honorary Mention in the CERN Collide International Prize, which is awarded as part of CERN’s Art and Science program, Art at CERN.
Statement
Juan Cortés is a Colombian artist using research and interdisciplinary processes to explore the connections between art, science and educational processes. His practice takes on multiple forms such as installation works, audio recordings, and concert pieces.
Cortés’ interest in sound and natural forces act as the basis and foundation of his art, especially through interactions between disciplines and techniques, and research-led practices. He uses his scientific upbringing and natural artistic abilities to break down complicated theories, happenings and phenomena into understandable, and often hands-on, installations and machinery, or “translation machines”.
Through his work, Cortés aims to bridge the gap between the realm of science and humanity. The result is intelligible art on a micro scale that is arresting and unique.
Additional information
Based on historical information and literary texts pertaining to black holes, two videos face each other to display a collage of knowledge and speculation by theoretical physicists that constantly intertwine, leaving a sea of doubt during a time when black holes had yet to be photographed.
