Cesar Martinez

(Mexico City, Mexico, 1962)

Visual and performance artist, he uses different technical supports to materialize his conceptual proposals, from gunpowder and dynamite “deconstructing the destructive” to electronic and digital media. Graduated in Graphic Communication Design from the Metropolitan Autonomous University and with studies in Plastic Arts at the La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving, he obtained his doctorate at the University of Castilla La Mancha with the thesis titled “Body, politics and subjectivity. Performance and antagonistic practices. He is a teacher and researcher at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Azcapotzalco unit, since 1988. He is a member of the Department of Design Evaluation over Time, and his academic work is in the research area Semiotics of the Image and he belongs to the groups of teaching of the Common Core and Graphic Communication Design, in the Division of Sciences Arts for Design. In his artistic proposals he reflects on creative identity, creates metaphors about the collective consciousness about suffocation in Between leaving or staying, the imperdurably present (2004) or questions geopolitics in the project Piedad entubada (2002), amplified visual ecology, which consisted of painting with graphic motifs in water what was previously a river and is currently known as Viaducto Río Piedad. He has won several national awards and honorable mentions, including the National Young Art Award in 1991. He has been the recipient of numerous production scholarships and residencies abroad, including the one awarded to reside at the Banff Center for the Arts, in Canada and the recently granted one to carry out postgraduate studies in Spain, granted by the Metropolitan Autonomous University, which has recognized him for his teaching work for two years in a row. In 2002 it began to be part of the National System of Creators in Mexico. Some of his artistic proposals are: 2013
Lapidaries and epitadesafíos. The grave as a message. Multipurpose Room of the Autonomous University of Guanajuato. 41st Edition of the Cervantino International Festival, Guanajuato, Mexico. Deli Cannibalism. Gastronomic and interactive exhibition with edible sculptures. Bistrot Arlequin-Orgón. Mexico City 2006
Around the world in trajinera and other surprises, Institute of Mexico in Spain, Madrid, Spain. 1996 Electrography at the end of the millennium, Box two, Espacio Alternativo. Mexico.
He has participated in Medialab Madrid, within the framework of the banquet_03 exhibitions metabolism and communication with the work Como, therefore I exist; I exist therefore as. Small sculptures made of sweet chocolate make up a menu of edible excrement of various shapes, which the artist offers to visitors to the exhibition. Starting with a tribute to Piero Manzoni and alluding to his work Merda d'artista from 1961, César Martínez explores and questions the nutritional value and metabolic process of the work of art. But it also questions contemporary eating habits, production processes and the quality of the food we eat.