Agustín Ortiz

Qualifications and academic training

• Master of Fine Arts, Konstfack College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm 2016
• Bachelor of Fine Arts, Universitat de Barcelona 1998
• Filmmaking Program, The New School University, New York 2003

Activity and/or professional career

She has recently participated in the Barcelona Science Biennial 2023 with a collaborative installation between UB scientists and choreographers. His work has been exhibited in Barcelona at the Santa Mónica Art Center, at the CCCB, at The Green Parrot gallery, the PLECS-Cultura Rizoma Festival, the Maristany Art Center, the Souvenir Space, the Loop Festival, La Capilla Bcn / Production, And also internationally in countries like Norway, Sweden and Germany. She has been a resident of Hangar, La Escocesa, El Graner and other international residences in Berlin and Stockholm. Agustín combines his artistic activity with teaching at various institutions such as the University of Utrecht where he teaches film classes and the Metaphor Art School in Barcelona.

Investigation

I am a visual artist trained in Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, with studies in Film Production at The New School (New York) and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Konstfack (Stockholm). My artistic practice unfolds across sculpture, audiovisual media and performance, from a critical queer perspective. Through these languages, I explore the devices of representation and systems of knowledge that have shaped the relationships between art, science and memory, questioning their patriarchal and colonial foundations.

My work has been presented at institutions such as MACBA, CCCB, Arts Santa Mònica and La Capella, and has included collaborations with communities and scientific institutions. I am interested in thinking of art as a form of knowledge—one capable of articulating alliances between the human and the non-human, and of proposing new material, political and affective ways of relating to the environment.

Thesis

marica, bastarda, matérica: sobre el potencial disidente de la escultura

My doctoral research proposes a study based on experimental sculptural practice to rethink the relationship between matter, body and knowledge from a queer sensitivity. Through hybrid material processes—combining the organic, the industrial and the living—the project seeks to challenge Western notions of hierarchy, agency and value associated with matter.

Inspired by thinkers such as Jane Bennett, Emanuele Coccia and Laura Tripaldi, the project develops counter-narratives that contest dominant anthropocentric and extractivist views, positioning sculpture as a space for critical and speculative thought. Through this practice, I aim to explore how queer methodologies—such as drag or camp—can infiltrate material and epistemological processes, opening possibilities for a more open, interdependent and situated understanding of materiality in the contemporary context.

Publications

• Anomenar. Posseir. Critique of taxonomic practice. BCN Production/La Capella. Barcelona City Council, 2020
• Future Forest Diorama. The Scottish Editions, 2022
• Unruhe. Figurationen. Schweizerischen Akademie der Geistes und Sozialwissenschaften. Vienna 2023

Work

His latest film Gnosis il·luminada was selected as part of the Not Yet Yes program curated by Simon*e van Saarloos at the IDFA (International Documentary film Festival Amsterdam) 2022.

Awards

• Artistic research grant. La Capella / BCN Production. Anomenar. Posseir. Crítica de la pràctica Taxonómica project (1919-20)
• Ecotons-La Escocesa artistic research grant. With the project. Future Forest Diorama (2021-22)
• OSIC artistic research grants, 2020 and 2022.
• Nils Johan Sjöstedts Scholarship, Stockholm, 2016.
• His work Fungi Fantasy and their friends Crazy Bacteria was acquired for the MACBA collection (2021)

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