Carlos Betancourt (born 1966) is a Puerto Rican artist.[1] A multimedia artist based in Miami,[2] he was an influential artist in that city following his arrival in the region of Wynwood in the 1980s.[3][4]
Born of Cuban immigrants in San Juan, Betancourt came to America with his family in 1981 when he was 15, settling in Miami.[5][6] Despite an early pursuit of architecture, he decided to pursue design, working in photography, painting, sculpture, installation, and performance art, among others.[7] He opened a studio and storefront named "Imperfect Utopia" in South Beach which in the 1990s was visited by a number of celebrities.[8] In 1995, he was named by People magazine one of its 50 most beautiful people in the world.[9] By 2002, his works were exhibiting internationally, with a solo exhibition at the Casa Museo Palacio Spínola in the Canary Islands.[10] In 2015, his work was collected in a coffee table book named after his art studio, published by Italian publisher Rizzoli Libri. With a foreword by Richard Blanco, the book explores the first 25 years of Betancourt's career.[4] That same year, in November, he mounted a solo exhibition at the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art.[4][11] In 2018, he received a Florida Prize from the Orlando Museum of Art.[12] His work is part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery of the United States.[13]
^Cunningham, Laura (18 Feb 2010). "An interview with artist Carlos Betancourt". LatinAmericanArt.com. Archived from the original on 9 December 2012. Retrieved 30 Jul 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Richard E. Burgheim, ed. (1996). People Weekly : Yearbook 1996. New York: Time Inc. Home Entertainment. p. 85. ISBN9781883013325.
^Lockward, Alanna; Zaya, Antonio (Spring 2002). "Carlos Betancourt y el cuerpo de la escritura". Atlántica: Revista de arte y pensamiento. Vol. 32. Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno. pp. 102–111. ISSN1132-8428.
