Carlos Rolón (b. 1970, Chicago, IL) attended Columbia College
Chicago with a concentration in painting and drawing. Rolón has been
recognized for his elaborately crafted paintings, ornate sculptures, and
works that come out of American, Latino, and uniquely-based
subcultures. His studio practice investigates pop culture, craft, ritual,
beauty, and its relationship to art history, subculture, appropriation,
and the institution. As a first-generation immigrant of Puerto Rican
decent, the artist creates objects questioning the concept of luxury
and craft-making to explore questions of identity, integration, and
aspiration. His work also represents a detailed examination of
curiosity and the process of art-making and the cultures surrounding
this. The work often addresses his biography by melding memory and
the imaginary with carefully crafted, hybrid works, which are playfully
situated between the contradictory worlds of conspicuous
consumption and urban artifact. The work is at once melancholic,
excessive, and exuberant, poised somewhere between celebration
and regret. Rolón illuminates how the masculine can become delicate
and the how the baroque can be minimal. The artist often channels
this approach with site-specific installation work, vivid large-scale
paintings, and ornate sculptures in various materials expanding on
ideas of self-reflection and imagined luxury. The works ultimately
produce a hybrid language of social practice, painting, and sculpture
inviting the viewer to engage in discourse and discussion.
Rolón has had solo exhibitions at The Dallas Contemporary, Dallas;
Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art,
Gateshead, UK; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico;
and CAM Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. His work has also
been exhibited in group shows at The Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago; Marta Herford Museum, Herford, Germany; Museum Het
Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, San
Diego; Museo del Barrio, New York; Centro Atlantico de Arte
Moderno (CAAM), Canary Islands; Oakland University Art Gallery,
Michigan; and Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico.
In 2007 Rolón represented Ukraine in the 52nd Venice Biennale. He is
a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation award for Painting and
Sculpture. Rolón’s work is included in the following public collections:
Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Brooklyn Museum, New York; City of
Chicago Public Art Collection; Deagu Art Museum, Deagu; Museo del
Barrio, New York; Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico; Museo de
Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan; Museum Het Domein, Sittard, The
Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Nerman
Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; and Pinchuk Art Centre,
Kiev, Ukraine, among others.

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EDUCATION

1989 Columbia College, Chicago
2011 Kraus Visiting Professor of Art, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS/PROJECTS

2017
50 Grand, The Tube Factory, Indianapolis (Curated by Shauta Marsh)

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2016
Tropicaliza, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ace of Fades (on the wall), Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
Vintage Voyages and Atomic Memories, Mike Kelley Mobile Homestead; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, Michigan
Carlós Rolon/Dzine: I Tell You This Sincerely…, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois
Commonwealth, Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, Michigan

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2015
Mi Casa, Pearl Lam Gallery, Singapore
Rolls-Royce Art Initiative, Singapore
Now and Then, Rockford Art Museum, Illinois
Encounters – Invitational Sector, Art Basel, Hong Kong
ONLY YOU: New Mirror Paintings, Casterline Goodman Gallery, Aspen
Tiffany & Co., MCA Commission + Collaboration, Tiffany & Co., Chicago; EXPO Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Vera List Artist Project, Lincoln Center, New York, New York

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2014
Tunnel Vision, space k, Gwangju
New Work, Walter Otero Contemporary, San Juan
Trophy Room, COLLABORATIONS, Art Cologne Invitational, Salon 94 and Galerie Henrik Springmann, Cologne, Germany
Thinking of Forever, Leeahn Gallery, Seoul
Dzine: Born Carlós Rolon, 1970, Paul Kasmin Gallery and Salon 94, New York

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2013
Victory, Public Functionary, Minneapolis
Victory, The Dallas Contemporary, Dallas

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2012
Imperial Nail Salon, Galerie Henrik Springmann, Berlin
Phenomenon, Deptford X, London (Curated by Hew Locke and Indra Khanna)
La Pelanda – Centro Di Produzione Culturale, Installation and performance, Rome

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS/PROJECTS

2017
Ephemera Obscura, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
Acts of Transgression, Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong
No Burden as Heavy, David Castillo Gallery, Miami
The Times, Flag Art Foundation, New York
Maker, Maker, Children’s Museum of Art, New York
Materialized Condition, Pearl Lam Galleries, Singapore
Beautiful Black, Leeahn Gallery, Daegu

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2016
Bedazzled, The Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York
IN/SITU, EXPO CHICAGO, Chicago Illinois
Chimento Contemporary, Los Angeles, California
Erik Hanson: Two Years of Looking, New Art Projects, London
DNA, Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, South Korea

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2015
Body Embellishment, The Mint Museum, North Carolina
Black/White, Ameringer McEnery Yohe Gallery, New York (Curated by Brian Alfred)
All Killer No Filler, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, New York
EXPO Chicago 2015, Tiffany & Co., Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Pearl Lam Galleries, Singapore; Salon 94, New York
Forms of Imagination, Arts Incubator, Chicago, Illinois
Custom Lives: Rasquache Renaissance, Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americans (MACLA), San Jose, California
Art Basel Miami Beach, Architectural Digest, Miami, Florida

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2014
Shaq Loves People, Presented by the Flag Art Foundation, EXPO CHICAGO
Booster, Art Sound Machine, MARTa Herford, Herford, Germany
Tradiciones, Rockford Art Museum, Illinois

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GRANTS/AWARDS

Joan Mitchell Painting and Sculpture Award
National Endowment for the Arts

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PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Bass Museum of Art, Miami
Brooklyn Museum, NY
City of Chicago Public Art Collection, Illinois
Collection Vanmoerkerke, Oostende, Belgium
Museo del Barrio, New York
Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan
Museum Het Domein, Sittard, Netherlands
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego
Nerman Museum of Art, Kansas City
Rockford Art Museum, Illinois
Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev
Yuz Art Foundation, Shanghai
Daegu Museum, South Korea