Jota Castro is a Franco-Peruvian artist and curator living between Brussels, Dublin and the Amazonian Region. He uses photography, sculpture, video and installations to talk about social issues. His work has been extensively shown in institutions around the world. He has participated in the Venice, Tirana, Prague, Sidney, Moscow, Istanbul and Kwangju biennales. In 2004 he won the Kwangju biennale prize. Rebuilding Utopias, Slow Future and the Fear Society are his curatorial materials. He studied Law, Political Science, International Relations, European Administration and Finances.
Me in a single sentence
Jota, that’s me, the son of a woman who is the daughter of a son of a
bitch and a gentleman of the Third World, I suffered from neglect
when I was little and I stopped talking for a year when I was five
years old, I was a soldier, I played sports, I studied, I traveled a lot, I
wrote a book—no good—I met my wife in Madrid, I married her in
Belfast, I almost lost her, I almost lost me, I came back to my dreams,
it makes me laugh knowing that Freud loved cocaine as much as me,
I’ve got kidney problems but I’m taking care of myself, I dreamed of
a destiny whereas I already had one, I love sex like I love life, I was
tortured and I still feel guilty, I have been rich and I didn’t like, I
have been poor and I didn’t like, I don’t know where I’m gonna die, I
have no children, I haven’t got a mother tongue any more, I picked
up art because I couldn’t stand lying , I’ve always liked writing
poetry, I lost a woman I loved, my father died without me ever seeing
him again, I haven’t seen my mother in 20 years, I feel lonely
sometimes, I’m crazy about soccer, when I was little my motto was
die rather than sin, sometimes certain friends call me el hijo del sol,
I’ve traveled more than my imagination, I was in Berlin when the
wall came down, I was in Moscow during Perestroika, mathematics
calms me down, I once dreamed of a star that walked, I read the
sports newspaper Equipe every day, I love the rain when I’m at
home, I have a retarded little brother called Fidel, I love Cy
Twombly, I feel right at home in Scotland, I feel right at home in
Italy, I’ve seen Pelé and Maradona play, I painted the stairs in my
house orange, I’m fascinated by Morrison’s “low pad” armchair, I’m
not white, I feel guilty, I was born in the Amazonia.
Jota Castro
Catalogue Hardcore – Towards a new activism - 2003