Multidisciplinary artist and professor Carlos Motta will hold the Keith Haring Chair in Art and Activism for 2025-26.
The Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard) and the Human Rights Project at Bard College names multidisciplinary artist and professor Carlos Motta as the 2025-26 Keith Haring Chair in Art and Activism. Born in Colombia and based in New York, Motta’s research and multimedia art practice examines the experiences of sexual, gender, and ethnic minority communities through a decolonial lens.
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Established as an annual award in 2014, the Keith Haring Chair offers prominent scholars, activists, and artists the opportunity to teach and conduct research within the CCS Bard graduate program and undergraduate Human Rights program.
The news of Carlos Motta being named recipient of the 2025-26 Keith Haring Chair in Art and Activism was shared in a press release from CCS Bard, an exhibition and research center at Bard College dedicated to the study of art and exhibition practices from the 1960s to the present day at Bard College in Annandale-On-Hudson, NY.
About Carlos Motta
Carlos Motta (b. 1978) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores sexuality, gender, and power through historical research and collaborative practice. In 2024, Motta presented Gravidade (Gravity) at Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, and participated in Disobedience Archive, a project by Marco Scotini at La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. His mid-career survey Carlos Motta: Pleas of Resistance was presented at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) in 2025 and will travel to OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz in 2026.
Past solo exhibitions include career surveys at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (MAMBO) (2023); The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2022); Museo de Arte Moderno de MedellÃn (MAMM) (2017); and Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg (2015). His work has been featured in major international exhibitions, including Scientia Sexualis, Pacific Standard Time (PST), Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Los Angeles (2024); Signals: How Video Transformed the World, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (2023); Is it morning for you yet?, 58th Carnegie International (2022); ); The Crack Begins Within, 11th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2020); Home is a Foreign Place, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019); Incerteza Viva, 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2016); and Le spectacle du quotidien, X Lyon Biennale (2010), among others.
Motta has been recognized with numerous prizes and awards, including the Artist Impact Initiative x Creative Time R&D Fellowship (2023); grants from the Penn Mellon Just Futures Initiative (2023), the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (2019); and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008). His work is held in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and Guggenheim Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SofÃa, Madrid; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá; among others.
Motta is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Practice in the Fine Arts Department at Pratt Institute.
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard CollegeÂ
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) is the leading institution dedicated to curatorial studies, a field exploring the conditions that inform contemporary exhibition-making and artistic practice. Through its Graduate Program, Library and Archives, and the Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard serves as an incubator for interdisciplinary practices, advances new and underrepresented perspectives in contemporary art, and cultivates a student body from diverse backgrounds in a broad effort to transform the curatorial field. CCS Bard’s dynamic and multifaceted program includes exhibitions, symposia, publications, and public events, which explore the critical potential of the practice of exhibition-making.
About the Human Rights Project
The Human Rights Project, founded at Bard in 1999, introduced the first freestanding interdisciplinary undergraduate degree program in Human Rights in the United States. Through teaching, research, and public programs, the Project is committed to exploring the too-often neglected cultural, aesthetic, and representational dimensions of human rights discourse. Since 2009, the Human Rights Project has collaborated with CCS Bard on the development of seminars, workshops, research projects, and symposia aimed at exploring the intersections between human rights and the arts. While academic in nature, this research and teaching draws heavily on the realm of practice, involving human rights advocates, artists, and curators.
About the Keith Haring Foundation
Keith Haring (1958-1990) generously contributed his talents and resources to numerous causes during his life. He conducted art workshops with children, created logos and posters for public service agencies, and produced murals, sculptures, and paintings to benefit health centers and communities impacted by systemic inequity. In 1989, Haring established a foundation to ensure that his philanthropic and artistic legacy would continue indefinitely.
The Keith Haring Foundation makes grants to not-for-profit entities that engage in charitable and educational activities. In accordance with Keith’s wishes, the Foundation concentrates its giving in two areas: the support of organizations which enrich the lives of young people and the support of organizations which engage in HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and care. The Foundation additionally maintains a collection of Haring’s art and archives and supports exhibitions, programming, and publications that serve to contextualize and illuminate the artist’s work and philosophy. www.haring.com.
About HWKN Architecture
HWKN is an award-winning, New York-based global architectural innovation firm led by Matthias Hollwich, alongside partners Jessica Knobloch, Dorin Baul, Robert May, and Olga Snowden. Founded in 2008, HWKN partners with cities, developers, and clients to maximize the impact and value of their development assets. The firm’s diverse portfolio includes buildings and neighborhoods alike, from retail spaces and popup-installations to residential and commercial schemes in the United States, Middle East, and Europe, with collaborating offices in Munich, Miami, Berlin, Riyadh, and London. HWKN creates unforgettable architecture by designing from the outside in, shaping spaces that turn buildings into social activators, identity markers, and happiness enhancers. The creative strategy is extended into the inside of the building, introducing new operational typologies. Here the future of real estate is taking shape, creating buildings for generations to come. Honored in Fast Company’s ranking of the world’s top 10 most innovative architects of 2024 for the firm’s AI work, the design team shapes the future for people, communities and investors. For more information, visit: www.hwkn.com.
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard CollegeÂ
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) is the leading institution dedicated to curatorial studies, a field exploring the conditions that inform contemporary exhibition-making and artistic practice. Through its Graduate Program, Library and Archives, and the Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard serves as an incubator for interdisciplinary practices, advances new and underrepresented perspectives in contemporary art, and cultivates a student body from diverse backgrounds in a broad effort to transform the curatorial field. CCS Bard’s dynamic and multifaceted program includes exhibitions, symposia, publications, and public events, which explore the critical potential of the practice of exhibition-making.
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