XAVIER CORTADA is Professor of Practice: Artist at the University of Miami. Through his primary appointment in the faculty of the Department of Art and Art History, he serves in the university’s Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, College of Arts and Sciences, Miami Business School, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (RSMAS), School of Architecture, School of Communication, and School of Law.
His science art practice is oriented toward social engagement and environment concerns. The artist has created art installations at the Earth’s poles to generate awareness about global climate change at points in between: In 2007, as a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program Fellow, Cortada used the moving ice sheet beneath the South Pole as an instrument to mark time; the art piece will be completed in 150,000 years. In 2008, he planted a green flag at the North Pole to reclaim it for nature and launch an eco-art reforestation effort.
Cortada often collaborates with scientists in his art-making:
- He serves as Collaborator on the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) project.
- At CERN, Cortada worked with a physicist to develop a site-specific art installation capturing the five search strategies which the CMS experiment used to discover a new Higgs-like particle. The five giant banners hang at the location where the particle was discovered.
- He also worked with a population geneticist on a project exploring our ancestral journeysout of Africa 60,000 years ago, with a molecular biologist to synthesize an actual DNA strand made from a sequence randomly generated by participants visiting his museum exhibit, and with botanists in participatory eco-art projects to reforest mangroves, native trees and wildflowers.
- Cortada is currently working with scientists at Hubbard Brook LTER on a water cycle visualization project driven by real-time data collected at a watershed in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
- Collaborating with the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER team at Florida International University (FIU), Cortada developed works depicting the glass shells of diatoms preserved in sedimentary core samples studied by scientists to grow our understanding of sea level rise in South Florida. (From 2011-18, Cortada served as Visiting Professor/Administrator and Artist-in-Residence at FIU College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts and in the School of Environment, Arts and Society, FIU College of Arts, Sciences & Education.)
Recent works that address Sea Level Rise and Global Climate Change include:
Earlier works include:
The Miami artist has also worked with groups globally to produce numerous collaborative art projects, including peace murals in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, child welfare murals in Bolivia and Panama, AIDS murals in Switzerland and South Africa, juvenile justice murals and projects in Miami and Philadelphia, and eco-art projects in Taiwan, Hawaii, and Holland.
Cortada has also been commissioned to create art for CERN, the White House, the World Bank, Florida Botanical Gardens, Miami City Hall, Miami-Dade County Hall, the Florida Turnpike, Miami-Dade Housing Authority, the Frost Science Museum, Museum of Florida History, and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum
His work is in the permanent collections of the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the NSU Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale, the Whatcom Museum, and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum.
Corporations such as General Mills, Nike, Heineken and Hershey’s have commissioned his art. Publishers like McDougal and Random House have featured it in school textbooks and publications. His work has also been featured in National Geographic TV and the Discovery Channel.
Cortada’s studio is located at Pinecrest Gardens where he serves as artist-in-residence, implements his participatory art projects and runs the Hibiscus Gallery. The artist also serves on boards of various national, regional and local groups, including: University of Miami Alumni Association, South Arts, Climigration, and the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council, where he serves as Chairman.
Cortada, who was born in Albany, New York and grew up in Miami from the age of three. He holds three degrees from the University of Miami: Bachelor of Arts, College of Arts and Sciences (1986), Master of Public Administration, Miami Business School (1991) and Juris Doctor, School of Law (1991).
Learn more at http://www.cortada.com.