Carlos Betancourt:
The Body Remembers—
A Letter to Bartolomé de las Casas

Carlos Betancourt
"The Body Remembers: A Letter to Bartolomé de las Casas"

A Virtual Conversation

Carlos Betancourt is an American multi-disciplinary artist who explores issues of memory and his own experiences, while also dwelling on matters of beauty, identity, and communication. In a notable 2001 series, Letters to Aracoel and Bartolomé de las Casas, he writes a letter to Las Casas (1484–1566), a Spanish historian and Dominican missionary who wrote accounts of the Indies and a defense of the Indians. Betancourt's body is metaphorically offered as a receptacle of traditions, memories, fears, and desires, now revealed to us as elements of a trans-Caribbean identity.

In this program, organized by Kislak Center Curator Carol Damian in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, the artist speaks with Damian about the extraordinary text of Las Casas, known as the “Protector of the Indians,” and why it has inspired him to address his own identity and relationship to the legacies of the Caribbean.

Carlos Betancourt has dedicated his creative life to re-examining, recycling, and reinterpreting the past by revisiting it in new and original contexts. Reflecting on his personal memories, he believes that art can be informed by one’s own experiences, not necessarily the other way around. Betancourt's artwork is part of public collections that include the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale; San Antonio Museum of Art; New Orleans Museum of Art; Palm Springs Art Museum; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach; Pérez Art Museum Miami; and Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico. He is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the Florida Department of State Millennium Cultural Recognition Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and the Miami Beach Arts Council Grant. He has worked as a curator and furniture designer, and has collaborated on architectural and large-scale site-specific public art commissions with architect Alberto Latorre.

Dr. Carol Damian is an art historian, former Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Art History at Florida International University, and former Director and Chief Curator of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at FIU. She has contributed to numerous publications and lectures frequently on Latin American and Caribbean art, and the local art scene. She is currently Curator of the Kislak Center, part of the Miami Dade College Special Collections, housed at the Freedom Tower; and of the Chapel of La Merced Colonial Collection at Corpus Christi in Miami.