Carlos J. Soto
Carlos J Soto (b. 1980) is a director and designer based in New York City, where he studied Art History and Literature at the Pratt Institute. His GIRLMACHINE, created in collaboration with Charles Chemin, premiered at Performa 09 and was subsequently presented in Paris by the American University of Paris. Pig Pig Pig (2010) was developed in residency at Le Point Éphémère, Paris, and performed at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. In 2011, he was featured in an evening of works curated by Robert Wilson for Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum. Soto was artist-in-residence at Kampnagel, Hamburg, in 2008. In September 2013, Pace Gallery, NY, exhibited video work created in residency at Willem de Kooning’s studio in Springs, NY. Soto was artist-in-residence at the Watermill Center in December 2015, where began work on Everything Alright.
Soto has worked with American artist and director Robert Wilson since 1997 as a performer, designer, and assistant on numerous productions in the U.S. and Europe, most recently performing in The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, alongside Abramović, Willem Dafoe and Anohni. He recently re-designed the costumes for the revival of Wilson’s and Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach. In May 2015, Soto designed costumes for Adam’s Passion, a collaboration with Wilson and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Most recently, he designed costumes for Wilson’s and Darryl Pinckney’s Garrincha: a street opera, a musical based on the life of the Brazilian football legend.
In 2014, Soto collaborated with artist Davide Balula on a site-specific performance at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, exploring connections between architecture, camouflage and dress. Soto performed in Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond) and Andrew Ondrejcak’s opera You Us We All, most recently at BAM Next Wave Festival 2015. Soto starred in Matthew Shattuck’s short film 50 Shades of Greige, commissioned by Nowness. In 2016 he will design costumes for an evening-length touring retrospective of Lucinda Childs’ works spanning dances from 1967 to today, culminating in a new work in collaboration with composers/instrumentalists Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld.
Soto has also collaborated on performance works with Kristin Worrall, Andrew Ondrejcak, Kembra Pfahler and The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Terence Koh, John Jahnke and The Hotel Savant, Dan Graham and Tony Oursler (Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty, 2005), among others.
