Prof. Xavier Cortada, Miami's Pioner Eco-Artist
Xavier Cortada is Professor of Practice: Artist at the University of Miami as a faculty member of the Department of Art and Art History. He has exhibited his work in museums, galleries and cultural venues across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Antarctica—and locally at the Miami Art Museum, the Bass Museum of Art, the Miami Science Museum and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida.
Recent group shows include the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado (2007), the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway (2007), the BOZAR Center for Fine Arts in Brussells, Belgium (2007), and the Ministry of Culture in Monaco (2008). Please visit www.cortada.com/calendar.htm for details.
Cortada has created art for the White House, the World Bank, the Florida Supreme Court, and the Museum of Florida History. In his hometown, Cortada’s commissioned work hangs in City Hall, County Hall, and the facade of the Juvenile Courthouse.
Cortada has worked with groups across the world to produce numerous large-scale murals and community art projects, including: environmental installations on Miami Beach and the South Pole. International AIDS Conference murals in Switzerland and South Africa, peace murals in Northern Ireland and Cyprus, and child welfare murals in Panama and Bolivia.
In 2007, as a recipient of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, he created site-specific installations at the South Pole. In June 2008, through the fiscal sponsorship of the New York Foundation for the Arts, Cortada will travel to the North Pole to install some of these pieces there.
Cortada holds three degrees from the University of Miami – a Bachelor of Arts, Master of Public Administration and Juris Doctor. The Cuban-American artist’s work and writings are preserved in the Xavier Cortada Collection of the University of Miami Libraries Cuban Heritage Collection.
