Carlos Betancourt (b 1996) is a Puerto Rican artist. A multimedia artist based in Miami, he was an influential artist in that city following his arrival in the region of

Wynwood Wynwood is a neighborhood in Miami, Florida. Wynwood is known for being an entertainment district, with artwork, restaurants, breweries, clothing stores, dance venues, among other retail options. Formerly an industrial district, the area is now ...

in the 1980s. Born of Cuban immigrants in San Juan, Betancourt came to America with his family in 1981 when he was 15, settling in Miami. Despite an early pursuit of architecture, he decided to pursue design, working in photography, painting, sculpture,

installation Installation may refer to: * Installation (computer programs) * Installation, work of installation art * Installation, military base * Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian l ...

, and performance art, among others. He opened a studio and storefront named "Imperfect Utopia" in

South Beach South Beach, also nicknamed colloquially as SoBe, is a neighborhood in Miami Beach, Florida. It is located east of Miami between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The area encompasses Miami Beach south of Dade Boulevard. This area was the fi ...

which in the 1990s was visited by a number of celebrities. In 1995, he was named by ''

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

'' magazine one of its 50 most beautiful people in the world. By 2002, his works were exhibiting internationally, with a solo exhibition at the Casa Museo Palacio Spínola in the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

. In 2015, his work was collected in a

coffee table book A coffee table book, also known as a cocktail table book, is an oversized, usually hard-covered book whose purpose is for display on a table intended for use in an area in which one entertains guests and from which it can serve to inspire convers ...

named after his art studio, published by Italian publisher

Rizzoli Libri Rizzoli Libri, formerly Rizzoli Libri S.p.A. and RCS Libri S.p.A. is an Italian book publisher and a division of Mondadori Libri, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. RCS Libri was a former subsidiary of RCS MediaGroup, but in ...

. With a foreword by

Richard Blanco Richard Blanco (born February 15, 1968) is an American poet, public speaker, author and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem " One Today" for Barack Obama's second in ...

, the book explores the first 25 years of Betancourt's career. That same year, in November, he mounted a solo exhibition at the

Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art The Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art, often abbreviated to MAC, is a contemporary art museum in Santurce, Puerto Rico. History The museum was founded by artists and sponsors of the civil society and was officially instituted on October ...

. In 2018, he received a Florida Prize from the

Orlando Museum of Art Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...

. His work is part of the permanent collection of the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...

of the United States.

References

External links

"The Art of Memory," 27 Sep 2016, Carlos Betancourt TEDX

Artnet Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Betancourt, Carlos American artists Living people 1966 births Artists from San Juan, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican people of Cuban descent Puerto Rican artists