On this special edition of West Texas Talk, Elise Pepple checks in with the Judd Foundation about their partnership with For Freedoms — a platform for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action by artists — as well as artists Carlos Motta and José Parlá, whose work for For Freedoms is now part of a month-long installation at Judd Foundation locations in New York and Marfa, Texas.
Carlos Motta (b. 1978, Bogota, Colombia) is a New York-based multi-disciplinary artist whose work documents the social conditions and political struggles of sexual, gender, and ethnic minority communities in order to challenge dominant and normative discourses through visibility and self-
representation. His work on display at Judd Foundation, originally produced for For Freedoms’ ‘50 States Initiative’ and installed in Des Moines, Iowa in 2018, presents a quote from poet the American writer, feminist, womanist, and civil rights activist Audre Lorde: "Liberation is not the private province of one particular group."
José Parlá (b. 1973, Miami, FL) is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work includes painting, sculpture, video, and photography. The work he created for the For Freedoms project — now on display at Judd Foundation — is "a message of unity," rooted in a belief that art can bring people together. In this conversation with host Elise Pepple, Motta and Parlá discuss Donald Judd's writings about art and politics and describe the responsibilities they feel as artists and citizens to engage with politics in their work.
