BIOGRAPHY

Xavier Cortada’s art-science practice is oriented toward social engagement and the environment. He serves as Artist-in-Residence at Florida International University‘s College of Arts, Sciences & Education (CASE) School of Environment, Art and Society (SEAS), and the FIU College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts (CARTA).

Cortada’s work is in the collections of the Perez Art Museum (PAMM), the NSU Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale, the Whatcom Museum, the Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum and the MDC Museum of Art + Design.

He has created art installations at the earth’s poles to generate awareness of global climate change: In 2007, while a fellow of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writer’s Program, he created a site-specific installation at the South Pole that uses its moving ice sheet 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 urban reforestation initiative.

Cortada often collaborates with scientists in his art-making:

• At CERN, he worked with a physicist to develop an art installation that captures the five search strategies scientists used to find The Higgs Boson particle, confirming the standard model of physics. Five giant banners hang at the Compact Muon Solenoid, the facility where the particle was discovered.

• Cortada worked with a population geneticist on a project that explores our ancestral journeys out of Africa 60,000 years ago.

• The artist collaborated with a molecular biologist to synthesize an actual DNA strand made from a sequence randomly generated by 400 participants visiting his museum exhibit. The work was published in Science.

Xavier Cortada [email protected] | 305-858-1323 | www.cortada.com

• Working with biologists, Cortada developed multi-year participatory eco-art projects to reforest mangroves, regrow native trees canopies and restore wildflower populations.

• During May 2015, Cortada participated as an artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, FL to work with scientists and artists in addressing sea level rise concerns.

• Cortada worked 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. He worked with same scientists in 2012 to perform "Wind Words: Water," the work was presented at the 2015 National Weather Center Biennale in Norman, OK.

• Cortada is working with researchers the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER to help our community understand diatoms and the role they play in helping us study water ecology and sea level rise.

The Miami artist has worked with groups globally to produce numerous collaborative art projects, including peace murals in and Northern Ireland, child welfare murals in Bolivia and Panama, AIDS murals in and South Africa, and eco-art projects in Taiwan, Hawaii, and Holland.

Cortada has also been commissioned to create art for the White House, the World Bank, the Florida Turnpike, Florida Botanical Gardens, Miami City Hall, Miami-Dade County Hall, the Miami Art Museum, Port Everglades, the Miami Science Museum, Museum of Florida History, and the 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, who was born in Albany, New York and grew up in Miami, holds degrees from the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences (1986), Graduate School of Business (1991) and School of Law (1991).

Xavier Cortada [email protected] | 305-858-1323 | www.cortada.com

PROFESSIONAL: • Artist-in-Residence, Florida International University (2011-present) College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts (CARTA) College of Arts, Sciences & Education (CASE) | School of Environment, Arts and Society (SEAS)

EDUCATION: • Juris Doctor, University of Miami School of Law Coral Gables, FL (1991). • Master of Public Administration, University of Miami Graduate School, Coral Gables, FL (1991). • Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, University of Miami College of Arts & Sciences, Coral Gables, FL (1986).

SELECTED PUBLIC ART COMMISSIONS 2013-17 Miami-Dade Housing Authority, nine sites, Miami, FL 2012-15 Broward County Public Art and Design Program, Port Everglades Terminal 2 and 4, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 2012 Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, City of Miami Gardens Aquatic Center, Miami Gardens, FL 2008 State of Florida Art in State Buildings, Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL. 2008 Monroe County Art in Public Places, Upper Keys Government Center, FL. 2008 Pinellas County Art in Public Places, Florida Botanical Gardens, Largo, FL. 2007 Monroe County Art in Public Places North Key Largo Fire Station, Key Largo, FL.

SELECTED GRANTS/Residencies/Awards: • H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest Artist-in Residence (Oregon), 2016 • Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest Artist-in Residence (New Hampshire), 2016 • The Robert Rauschenberg Residency: Rising Waters Confab (Captiva, FL), 2015 • Flower Power: Cultivando / Flowers for Cuba, The Studios Key West, Key West, FL, 2014 • Art for the Compact Muon Solenoid in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, Geneva, Switzerland, 2013 • Cintas Fellowship in Art, Finalist 2012-13, • Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire Artist-in Residence, White Mountain National Forest, NH, 2012 • BLOOM at Kaohsiung International Container Art Festival, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, 2011 • The Coral Eco-Art projects, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historic Organizations), Honolulu, Hawaii, 2010 • Paths and Traces/Chemins et Tracés, Fondation Derouin – Symposium 2009, Les Jardins du Précambrien, Val-David, Quebec, Canada, 2009 • Kunst- en natuurwandeling OverLeven, Foundation Nature Art Drenthe (Stichting Natuurkunst Drenthe), Drenthe, The , 2009 • 90N (North Pole) Installations, New York Foundation for the Arts, NYFA sponsored artist, 2008. • Art in Antarctica (South Pole Installations), National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, 2006-2007 • Prior grantors also include: U.S. State Department, USAID, State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council, Miami-Dade Art in Public Places

LEADERSHIP: • Vice Chair (2012), Florida Council on Arts and Culture, Tallahassee, FL (2008-2012) • Councilor, Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council, Miami, FL (2005-present) • Member, City of Miami Arts and Entertainment Council, Miami, FL (past) • Executive Committee, Miami-Dade Community Relations Board (CRB) (past)

Xavier Cortada [email protected] | 305-858-1323 | www.cortada.com

SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS • Permanent collection of the Perez Art Museum Miami • Permanent collection of the NSU Museum of Art Ft. Lauderdale • Permanent collection of the Whatcom Museum • Permanent collection of the Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum • Permanent collection of the MDC Museum of Art + Design • The World Bank • Department of State Art Collection, State of Florida

SELECTED LECTURES In recent years, Cortada has delivered formal lectures about his art at: White House, Washington, D.C. (2015) | TEDxFIU, Miami, FL (2013) | Gulf Coast State College, Panama City, FL (2013) | Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, FL (2013) | Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL (2014) | University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (2014) | Harn Museum, Gainesville, FL (2013) | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland (2013) | Florida Museum of Natural History, Tallahassee, FL (2013) | Auburn University, Auburn, AL (2009) | Exploratorium (at the Palace of Fine Arts), San Francisco, CA (2009) | NKNU Graduate Institute of Interdisciplinary Art, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2011) | Parsons The New School for Design, New York, NY (2011) | Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (2008) | Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (2010) | San Jose State University, San Jose, CA (2010) | United States Embassy, Helsinki, Finland (2008) | University of South Florida St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, FL (2011) | White Mountain National Forest, Campton, NH (2012)

SELECTED GROUP and SOLO EXHIBITS: 2015 The National Weather Center Biennale, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 2015 Anthroposcene: Art and Nature in a Manufactured Era, University of Miami CAS Gallery, Miami, FL 2015 Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775 – 2012, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Ontario, CA 2015 Fermilab Art Gallery presents Art @ CMS, Fermilab, Batavia, IL 2014 Littoral Creatures, Broward College, Davie, FL 2014 Flower Power: Cultivando | Flowers for Cuba, Oldest House and Garden Museum, Key West, FL 2013 The “500 Exhibit”, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Preserve Gallery, Key Biscayne, FL 2011 BLOOM: Kaohsuing International Container Art Festival, Kaohsuing Museum of Art, Kaohsuing, Taiwan 2010 Sequentia, Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL 2010 The Liberators Project/Liberadores (Denver Biennial of the Americas), Museo de las Americas, Denver, CO. 2009 Water: Three States, Auburn University Art Gallery, Auburn, AL. 2009 Polar Identity, Works Gallery, San Jose, CA. 2009 Antarctica: Collection from the Bottom of the World, Maryland Science Center, Baltimore, MD. 2008 Polar Attractions, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA. 2008 EPA (Environmental Performance Actions), EXIT ART, New York, NY. 2007 Weather Report, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO -- curated by Lucy Lippard. 2007 Envisioning Change, presented by the Natural World Museum and the United Nations Environment Programme at the Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, Norway (June-August), and the BOZAR Center for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium (October- December), and the Ministry of Culture in Monaco (2008). 2006 Miami in Transition, Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL.

SELECTED MEDIA: • Art in the Anthropocene, by Alan C. Braddock and Renée Ater. Source: American Art, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Fall 2014), p. cover2. Published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum • Painting the Genome for the Public, Science, 4 February 2011: Vol. 331 no. 6017 p. 548 • Green Museum, by Allison Compton, Public Art Review, Issue 40, pp 52-55 (Spring/Summer 2009). • Global Warnings, by Suzaan Boettger, Art in America, Issue No. 6, pp. 154-161, 206-207, June/July 2008. • Kunsthaus Miami exhibit. Review by Milagros Bello. Published in arte al día (International Magazine of Contemporary Latin American Art), edition 119, (July 2007).

Xavier Cortada [email protected] | 305-858-1323 | www.cortada.com

Xavier Cortada

Xavier Cortada serves as Artist-in-Residence at Florida International University‘s College of Arts, Sciences & Education (CASE) School of Environment, Art and Society (SEAS), and the FIU College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts (CARTA). The Miami artist has created art installations at the North Pole and South Pole to address environmental concerns at every point in between. He has been commissioned to create art for the White House, CERN, the World Bank, the Florida Turnpike, Florida Botanical Gardens, Miami City Hall, Miami-Dade County Hall, the Miami Art Museum, Port Everglades, the Miami Science Museum, Museum of Florida History, and the Frost Art Museum. Cortada has also developed numerous collaborative art projects globally, including peace murals in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, child welfare murals in Bolivia and Panama, AIDS murals in Geneva and South Africa, and eco-art projects in Hawaii, New Hampshire, Taiwan, and Holland.

Xavier Cortada [email protected] | 305-858-1323 | www.cortada.com