Achievement Award

Throughout his career spanning close to four decades, Daniel Joseph Martinez has engaged in an interrogation of social, political, and cultural mores through artworks that have been described as nonlinear, asymmetrical, multidimensional propositions. Operating with fluidity and as open source manifestations not bound by any singular category, his works extend from the ephemeral to the solid. Martinez’s practice takes the form of text, sculpture, photography, painting, installation, robotics, performance, and public interventions to unapologetically question issues of personal and collective identity, vision and visuality, and the fissures formed between the appearance and the perception of difference. Ongoing themes include contamination, history, surveillance, violence, nomadic power, cultural resistance, war, dissentients, and systems of symbolic exchange, directed toward the precondition of politics coexisting as radical beauty. Their commonality is that they all address topics of race, class and sociopolitical boundaries present within American society.

Martinez represented the U.S. in 11 biennials worldwide, including the Venice Biennial (1993); Istanbul Biennial (2011); Berlin Biennial (2010); California Biennial (2008); Lyon Biennial, France (2013); two Whitney Biennials (1993, 2008); designated the United States in the American Pavilion in the Cairo Biennial (2006), in addition to two international projects of U.S. Department of State. Martinez has received three National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artists Fellowships, a fellowship from the Getty Center, an Alpert Award in the Arts and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Most recently, Martinez received the prestigious honor of receiving the Guna S. Mundheim Visual Arts Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany (Berlin Prize) in 2016. Committed to grassroots organizations, Martinez was a co-founder of Deep River and LAXART, both in Los Angeles. He remains additionally active on multiple non-profit boards. Martinez is represented by 5 monographs and is currently working on a new book based on his residency in Berlin.

Martinez is a Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Art at the University of California at Irvine; he teaches in the Graduate Studies Program, New Genres Area, and Critical & Curatorial Studies. He lives and works in the Crenshaw District in South Los Angeles.

Photo courtesy of the artist

A Look Inside:

Born │ 
Los Angeles, California, 1957.

Education │

BFA, California Institute of the Arts. California, USA.

Awards│

CIFO Grants & Commissions Program 2017. Florida, USA (Achievement Award). | American Academy Fellowship. Berlin, Germany (2016). | Cannonball Visiting Residency. Florida, USA (2015). | The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Herb Alpert Foundation. California, USA (2014). | United States Artists Grant, United States Artists. California, USA (2007). | ArtPace Foundation Fellowship. Texas, USA (2005). | Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Fostering Undergraduate Education, University of California. California, USA. (2004). | Individual Artists Fellowship, California Arts Council. California, USA (2003). | Outstanding Professor of Art, University of California. California, USA (2003). | Professor with the highest impact on a student, University of California. California, USA (2001). | Artists Fellowships, The Peter Norton Family Foundation. New York, USA. (2001). | Individual Artist Fellowship, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation. New York, USA (2001). | L.A. Artcore 13th Annual Award for excellence in the commitment to Education, Art, and Community. California, USA (2001). | Professor with the highest impact on a student, University of California. California, USA (2001). | 2000 Artists Fellowships, The Peter Norton Family Foundation. New York, USA (2000). | First Prize Grant Award, ES2000 Tijuana Biennial, International Biennial of Standards, The Cultural Center of Tijuana. Tijuana, Mexico. (2000). | Individual Artist Fellowship, C.O.L.A. California, USA (2000). | Individual Artist Fellowship, The Flintridge Foundation. California, USA (2000). | Professor with the highest impact on a student, University of California. California, USA (2000). | Artists Fellowships, The Peter Norton Family Foundation. New York, USA (1997-1999). | Fellowship for Individual Artists, The Getty Foundation. California, USA (1997). | Individual Artists Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts. Washington D.C., USA (1995). | Faculty and Scholar Recognition Award, Omega Greek Leadership and Academic Honorary Society, University of California. California, USA (1992). | Project Support Grant, The Peter Norton Family Foundation. New York, USA (1991). | Individual Artists Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts. Washington D.C., USA (1990). | Project Support Grant, National Endowment for the Arts. Washington D.C., USA (1990). | Window Project Grant, City of Los Angeles, Cultural Affairs. California, USA (1990).

 Selected Exhibitions │

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
“IF YOU DRINK HEMLOCK, I SHALL DRINK IT WITH YOU or A BEAUTIFUL DEATH; player to player, pimp to pimp. (As performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade)”, Roberts & Tilton. California, USA (2016). | “I Want to go to Detroit; Cheerleaders CHEER” LAXART, California, USA (2012). | “Daniel Joseph Martinez: Recent Acquisitions” Linda Pace Foundation. Texas, USA (2008). | “The West Bank is Missing; I am not dead, am I” Amie and Tony James Gallery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York. New York, USA (2008). | “Divine Violence, The Project". New York, USA (2007). | “The Fully Enlightened Earth Radiates Disaster Triumphant” United States Pavilion, 10th International Cairo Biennale. Cairo, Egypt (2006).

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
CIFO Grants & Commissions Program Exhibition 2017 (Artist Achievement Award). Florida, USA | “Home – So Different, So Appealing” Pacific Standard Time LA/LA, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Texas, USA (2017). | “Home – So Different, So Appealing” Pacific Standard Time LA/LA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. California, USA (2017). | “Take Me (I’m Yours)” The Jewish Museum, New York, USA (2016). |  “Wasteland” The Mona Bismarck American Center, Paris, France and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin (2016). | “Come As You Are: Art of the 1990s” Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, USA (2015). | 2013 “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star” The New Museum, New York, USA (2013). | “Print/Out” Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (2012). |  “A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love; or, Where You Goin' with That Gun in Your Hand: Bobby Seale And Huey Newton Discuss the Relationships between Expressionism and Social Reality Present in Hitler's Paintings” 12th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey (2011). | “The Artist’s Museum: Los Angeles Artists, 1980-2010” Museum of Contemporary Art, California, USA (2010). | “Catastrophe?” La Biennale de Quebec. Quebec City, Canada (2010). | “Whitney Biennial 2008” Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, USA (2008). | “2008 California Biennial” Orange County Museum of Art. California, USA (2008). | 2004 “San Juan Triennial” La Perla, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2004). | 2000 “Made in California: Art, Image, Identity, 1900-2000” Los Angeles County Museum of Art. California, USA (2000). | “Whitney Biennial 1993” Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, USA (1993). |“Big Bad Wolf” La Biennale di Venezia, Forty-fifth International Exhibition, Aperto Section. Venice, Italy (1993). | “Revelaciónes / Revelations: Hispanic Art of Evanescence” Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. New York, USA (1993).