Carlos Rigau, born in 1978 and raised in little Havana Miami Florida.
Carlos graduated in 2002 from F.I.U. with a double major in Fine art and Television communications. In 2010 Rigau completed Hunters MFA program in NYC. He has exhibited his work in Berlin, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Miami. In addition to art making Carlos started and operated an experimental artist run space named General Practice. He has completed residencies at Acadia Summer Arts Program {Kamp Kippy}, Everglades AIRE, Fountainhead and the Deering estate. Fellowships at A.I.M. Bronx museum and a Media arts Fellow at BRIC in Brooklyn NY. Recipient of New York Foundation for the arts, MIA artist grant and Locust Projects Public art grant.
My experience of growing up in urban Miami’s Little Havana has shaped the content and attitude of my work. Using photography, the moving image, sculpture and performance, I attempt to dissect the foundations of artifice, display and perception. Miami is a place rife with artifice and replicas. The layers of artificial and real overlap and synchronize like the plastic and real plants in a hotel lobby to create a hybrid reality where the synthetic is as genuine as the natural to nourish our desiring bodies. In this way these interests come from my formative surroundings. Objects and ideas are worked, crushed and reassembled. The work imitates the materials and aesthetics of art, while considering the psychology used by the advertising industry. Weaponizing the formal means of mass consumption and transmission, critical agitation and defamiliarization is the intent.
Selected Exhibitions
2023 Making Miami Dimensions Variable Pavilion Miami FL
Local Objects International Objects Brooklyn NY
Blue Print. Bridge Red studios Miami Florida
2022 Endless Everglades (solo project) Hernando's Hideaway Miami Beach Fl
2021 Ocean Less Beach (solo project) P.A.D. NY NY
2020 Meme Underdonk Brooklyn NY
2019 Wanderers Tile Blush Miami Florida
Tension in Three Dimensions Deering Estate Miami Fl
2018 New York Flowers Festival Essex Flowers NY, NY
Elements Book Store Gallery at Hunter College NY, NY
2017 Invitational Painting Party Hot White Men Projects Brooklyn NY
2016 Cintas Finalist Exhibition Freedom Tower MDC Galley. Miami FL.
Cold Verse Knock Down Center Brooklyn NY with Y2K.
Delusions through Details(solo show) LMAK gallery NY,NY
2015 Santa Toy Shop goes to Cuba (solo project) Meeting House Miami Fl.
Cut N Mix : Contemporary Collage El Museo del Barrio, NY NY
{curated by Rocío Aranda-Alvarado}
Bronx Calling: The Third AIM Biennial Bronx Museum,Bronx, NY
{Curated by Bronx-based artists Hatuey Ramos-Fermín and Laura Napier}
2014 Cintas Finalist Exhibition Freedom Tower MDC Galley. Miami FL.
Anomie: Fractured art norms Suny Cortland Gallery Westchester , NY
Leather Thomas Erben Gallery NY, NY
2013 Rainbow Juice Helper Brooklyn NY
By Design Locust Projects, {projects space solo} Miami Fl
Plastic Ruins LMAK Projects {solo show} NY, NY
2012 Store Front Organized by Ibett Yanez and Tiffany Chestler, Miami Fl
Funded by the de la Cruz collection and DACRA.
Magnetic Poetry {solo show} Dorsch Gallery , Miami Fl.
Practice Remain Regina Rex, Brooklyn NY
2011 Open David Castillo Gallery, Miami Fl.
Liquid Matter { co-curated exhibition with Ibett Yanez }
At the Fabric workshop in conjunction with
the de la Cruz collection Philadelphia PA
Fighting Dancing Kissing {curatorial intervention}
Fabric workshop in conjunction with the de la Cruz collection
Philadelphia, PA
Friends don’t have sleepovers {solo show} LMAK projects N.Y.
2010 Fighting Dancing Kissing {curatorial intervention}
de la CRUZ collection, Miami Fl
The Funny guy that StickS his hand in the paInt BuCKet.
Dimensions Variable , Miami Fl
Bubble Raft Dorsch Gallery, Miami FL
ELSE Tilton Gallery, New York, N.Y.
2009 Miami MediaMesh at the American Airlines Arena Miami, FL
F(r)acture: divisions in painting Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL
Radiant Decay Curated by Meghan Carleton Warburg
New York , N.Y
Our Great Show Nice and Fit Gallery Berlin, Germany
Press