Eli Cortiñas

Eli Cortiñas’ practice centers around the idea of challenging cinematic memory through analyzing and re-editing pre-existing footage and merging it with her own film, video and sound recordings. By first collecting, organizing and classifying the sourced material, the artist then reworks and reimagines the found film, YouTube, advertising or animation footage in a next step, disrupting and re-structuring narrative flows.

Cortiñas’ video montages, collages and object arrangements suggest new and different meanings to appropriated and edited footage, in order to debunk myths and hegemonic narratives, as the artist of Cuban descent states. This method of ‘editing as writing’ generates a mixed feeling of both identification and alienation. A deep dive into psychological, aesthetic and societal questions, Eli Cortiñas manages to create an ambiguous and affirmative transparency within her work inviting her audience to explore power, memory and politics.

Eli Cortiñas studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and at the European Film College Ebeltoft, Denmark. She currently holds a shared professorship at Braunschweig University of Art. Selected solo exhibitions include The Body is The House, The House is But Haunted, Kunstverein Braunschweig, DE (2022), Walls Have Feelings, KINDL – Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin, DE (2021), Free Circulation = Free Copulation, Soy Capitán, Berlin, DE (2019), Always bite the hand that feeds you, Convent Space for Contemporary Art, Ghent, BE (2018), Remixers never die, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, LT (2018), Awkward Studies and a Decent Take on Serious Matters, Rokeby, London, UK (2013), Love Is Worn Around The Neck, curated by Veit Loers, Kunstraum Innsbruck, AT (2012).

Her work was part of several group exhibitions, such as Landscapes of Labour, KAI10 Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf, DE (2022), Existing Otherwise – The Future of Coexistence, SCCA (Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art), Tamale, GH (2022), The 6th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Dobrolyubova, RU (2021), Thinking like an Octopus, or: Tentacular Grasp, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, DE (2021), Fotografie Heute: Resistant Faces, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2020), MASKE. Kunst der Verwandlung, Kunstmuseum Bonn (2019), Büro komplex – Die Kunst der Artothek im politischen Raum, Kunsthaus NRW, Aachen, DE (2018), Film Footage Fotografie. Bildnerische Augenblicke mit filmischen Bezügen, Museum for Photographie Braunschweig, DE (2017), 10 Emerging Artists, Contemporary Experimental Films and Video Art from Germany, Goethe Institute Canada, CAN (2017), Double Feature, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, DE (2017), and Les Rencontres Internationales at Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR (2011). Eli Cortiñas has been awarded with grants and fellowships from Fundación Botín (2018), Berliner Senat (2017), Villa Sträuli (2017), Villa Massimo Rome (2014), Marianna Ingenwerth-Stiftung grant for residency at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo La Regenta (2013), Shortlist Award for Young Film Art, Freunde der Neuen Nationalgalerie und Deutscher Filmakademie (2011), et al.

Eli Cortiñas, born 1979 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, lives and works in Berlin.