Education.
– Seminar fluxus: Anti- Art and no- Art”, Muac, PHD. Cuauhtémoc Medina.
– San Carlos Academy, Mexico City, 2002-2005. ( Specialization in sculpture, engraving, textiles.)
– Seminar : Estoperoles in the museum; institutional assimilations of alternative aesthetics. MUAC, Mexico City, 2021.
– Seminar on contemporary art, Genealogy of the exhibition space, MUAC, Mexico, 2020.
– Seminar of Contemporary art , Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico, PHD. Haydée Rovirosa, 2020.
– Seminar on Comparative Mythologies, Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico, PHD, Haydée Rovirosa, 2020.
– Seminar: Transdisciplinary Dialogues of the Arts, Iberoamericana university. PHD.Ignacio Prado. 2020.
– Contemporary art course, From Marcel Duchamp to Jeff Koons, Jumex Museum, Mexico city , 2019. Mariá Minera.
– Techniques in Industrial Resins and Polymers, Plastic Polyforms, CDMX, Mexico, 2010.
– Multidisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Art in the Arts, San Carlos Academy, Mexico City, Mexico, 2009.
Santos is a Mexican artist who lives between Tulum, Quintana Roo and works in his house-studio located in Pueblo Santa Fe in CDMX. In the form of paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, embroidery, tapestries, photographs, installations, etc. his multidisciplinary work explores the intersections between the human mind and body, the natural environment and industrial matter, as well as the political and aesthetic implications of their social contexts. In his artistic process, Santos draws materials from his urban context, natural environment and/or from his own mind and body. Thus, he examines the expressive possibilities of materials themselves, their vitality and the various ways in which they are physically and discursively transformed.
Santos has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, national and international, including countries such as Mexico, USA, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, Denmark and Japan. His work has been shown in artistic institutions and cultural organizations both public and private, including the Franz Mayer Museum, Museum of Medicine Mexico, Yamakiwa Gallery Japan, Zhou B Art Center Chicago, Miramare Castle in Trieste Italy, Cultural Institute of Mexico in France, Embassy of Mexico in Berlin Germany, Palazzo Lomellini in Carmagnola Turin Italy, Palace of Egypt Oieras Portugal, Embassy of Mexico in Frederiksværk Denmark, among others.
In addition to his exhibition work, he has initiated relational and collaborative projects in abandoned spaces and marginalized communities. With the intention of subverting the legitimizing exhibition space of art, and the hierarchies that condition the artistic process, he started the ‘Museum of Contemporary Art “El Piru” where he appropriated an abandoned police module to enable it as an International Contemporary Art Gallery, a sewage dam, “Becerra dam” and declared it “Laboratory of contemporary Art”implying the participation of its neighbors in the community where it lives. More recently, he opened an artistic research residency at TULUM, “Tulum Art Residence” which received in 2022 the award at the “ClavoMovimieno” fair in CDMX for best Stand and proposal of the 2022 fair.
Santos has been invited to international artistic residencies, including “Residencia Art Project” in Playa del Carmen, Montemurro Italy “school of graphite”. Program of artistic residencies at the “Zhou B art Center” gallery in Chicago Illinois, USA.
2022
“The Body as a Container”, Clavo Fair, Mexico City.
“Opossite Conditios”, Residencia Art Project, Playa del carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
2021
“We were never Modern”, Fosa Gallery. Abandoned Dam, Álvaro Obregón, Mexico City.
“Reality over Reality”, Fosa Gallery. Abandoned Dam, Becerra, Álvaro Obregón, Mexico City.
2020
“Confrontation” Fosa Galley. Abandoned Dam, Becerra, Álvaro Obregón, Mexico City.
2019
“Genius Loci” Plomo Gallery. Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico City.
2018
¨ Invisible life¨ Coprospherity Sphere Gallery. Chicago, Ilinois, USA.
2016
¨Dead wants to live¨ ACS Gallery. Chicago Illinois, USA.
2015
“Life wants to live¨ UNAM. Chicago Illinois, USA.
2014
“Mex City¨ Zhou B Art Center, Chicago Illinois, USA.
2012
“ANATOMIAS IMPOSIBLES” Museum of Mexican Medicine, Mexico, CDMX.
2011
“ANATOMIAS REEDIFICADAS” Traeger & Pinto Contemporary Art Gallery.
Colima 179 Roma , Mexico CDMX
2010
“ALTERADO¨ Traeger & Pinto Contemporary Art Gallery.
Colima 179 Roma México CDMX.
2008
“Drawings ” Galería de Arte Contemporáneo 9 Ote. #6 Puebla, downtown.
2023
“Beyond the Brush: Mark Making in Abstraction”, Zhou B. Art Center, Chicago, USA.
“Good people” , Beauty & Brown Gallery, Edgewater chamber of commerce, Chicago, USA.
2022
– “Mosaico mural” Taco contemporary art, Tlalpan downtown , Mexico City.
– “ Mosaic intervention mural” alianza francesa, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
2021
– “On the way to Dubai”. Sebastian Founding, Mexico City.
– “Wonder of Chamber”, Aluxiik Art Projects. Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico
2018
¨By Indirections find Directions out¨. Yamakiwa Gallery
Cuarted by Paula Zambrano
Matsuno yamakamiebiike, Tokamachi, Niigata Prefecture, Japan.
¨Los vivos tambien Mueren¨, Cru Cru Art Space
Callejon Romita 8, Roma norte, Mexico City.
curated by Kler Becker
¨Vestigios Metafisicos¨
Traeger & Pinto Contemporary art Gallery .Colima, Mexico City.
2016
¨blue note¨, Galerie Michael Sturm. Stuttgart, Germany.
2015
¨Transitions¨ . 15th & West Gallery . 2439 W. 15th Street Chicago Illinois, USA.
2014
Museum of Contemporary art San Diego USA.
¨Messico Circa 200¨ Castillo de Miramar Trieste, Italy . Denmark , Holland.
¨Manos por México¨ Franz Mayer Museum. Mexico DMX.
¨We stand for creativity¨ . England embassy of México ; London, EUA.
“Mex City¨ Zhou B Art Center. 1029 W. 35th Street Chicago Illinois 60609, USA
“Contemporary Citizens¨. 15th & West Gallery 2439 W. 15th Street Chicago
Illinois USA
“Frecuencias Residentes” Cozumel 23 Roma Mexico CDMX.
2013
¨Horizontes¨. collection de la SHCP Guatemala 69, Mexico City.
¨TheBeast Will Haveits Day¨. Galerie Michael Sturm. Stuttgart, Germany.
Museum of de Contemporary art of los Ángeles, USA.
2012
“Sin límites”. collection of SHCP, CDMX
Portugal, España, Francia, Canada, Mexico, Germany.
¨Arte en barricas¨ Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts. Mexico CDMX
2011
“PAPEL ARTE MEXICANO ACTUAL, DIBUJO Y ESTAMPA.”
Cultural Center “Julio Mario Santo Domingo” Bogota, Colombia.
“RE-COVER” Lake house. Juan José Arreola
Chapultepec Forest. Mexico, CDMX.
“NI NOVIA FEA NI MUERTO MALO” Galería del museo SHCP
Guatemala 6, Mexico City.
“Colectiva de Dibujos” Galería “Domicilio Conocido”
Corredor Cultural Roma-Condesa Ámsterdam, Condesa. CDMX
2010
¨HOT ART¨. basel suiza Art Fair.
Basilea Suiza and Mexico CDMX.
“Líneas Continuas”. (Colección SHCP)
Mexico; Canada, EUA, Espain. France, Portugal, Germany.
“Colectiva de verano” Galería Traeger & Pinto Contemporary art.
Corredor Cultural Roma-Condesa” Mexico City.
“Preámbulo III¨, Expresión en papel Museum of Arocena of Torreon Mexico.
“DRAW” Mexico City Museum, internacional group show,
Curated by Eric Foss,Curse Mackey and Miguel Calderòn.
International Collections :
– Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City, Mexico.
– Medicine Museum, Mexico City, Mexico.
– San Ildefonso Museum, Mexico City, Mexico
– Haydee Rovirosa, Mexico.
– Zhou Brother, Chicago, USA.
– Pinto Mazal, Mexico.
– ED MARZ Collection, Chicago, USA.
– Government of Quintana Roo, Mexico.
– Paula Zambrano, Goldsmith Academy, London.
– Carpe Diem, Art and Research. Portugal.
International residences:
– Cultural Center, Julio Matos, Lisboa, Portugal, 2023.
– Residencia Art projects, Playa del Carmen, 2022.
– Escuela di grafito, Montemurro, Italy, 2017
– Zhou B Art Center, Chicago Illinois, USA, 2016.
Texts and Publications
– Zambrano, Paula. ‘Carlos Santos, Anachronism,’ pages 164-171. In Curating Time, Contingency,
Anachronism, Flirtation, PhD thesis, Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University of London, 2021.
– Egea Eduardo, ‘Carlos Santos, Art as a Social Fabric,’ In the newspaper La crónica. Mexico, April 18,
2021.
– Eduardo Egea, ‘The death of Alternative Art’ In La Crónica newspaper. Mexico, August 9, 2020.
– Joséphine Dorr, ‘Genius Loci’ Published in the exhibition catalog. Mexico, 2019.
– Video, ‘Dosis of the palace, Carlos Santos, Impossible Anatomy’, Palacio de Medicina, UNAM,
Mexico, 2020.
Http://pem.facmed.unam.mx/index.php/2021/01/19/dose-del-palacio-anatomias-imposibles/
– Buenader, Ivan. ‘About Carlos Santos’. Spain 2016, published in the catalog of the exhibition
“Impossible Anatomys”, 2019.
– Santamarina, Gabriel. ‘Carlos Santos, The Invisible Life’, Mexico, 2017.
– Emerging Culture Magazine, Dos puntos, ‘Carlos Santos’ pages 16 and 17. February – March 2016.
– Campuzano Rodrigo, ‘Symptoms of perspectives’, Mexico, 2016. Published in the catalog of the
exhibition “Dead Wants to Live”, ACS Gallery, Chicago Illinois, USA.
– Leon Antonio, ‘Radiographs of the soul’ 2016.
– Picnic Magazine, ‘Carlos Santos, Homunculus’ pages 50-55, Mexico City, 2013