Test of Time: South Body by Carlos Martiel

September 15, 2025by Luis Juárez

To celebrate Foam’s 25th anniversary, Foam Magazine’s latest issue Test of Time features a special section in which some of the most esteemed thought-makers in the photography world were invited to choose one image they think will stand the test of time and why. 

 

South Body, 2019, a performance by Cuban artist Carlos Martiel. Courtesy the artist and Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles

 

One image that will undoubtedly stand the test of time is South Body, 2019, a performance by Cuban artist Carlos Martiel. In it, Martiel uses his own body as a symbolic territory of conflict—exposed, wounded, affirmed. This work resonates deeply with me because it powerfully condenses the tensions of our global present: the crumbling of imperial order, the structural violence of capitalism and the persistent racial and sexual hierarchies. 

Today, the word resistance is used so frequently in political speeches, curatorial texts and even advertising campaigns, that it risks losing all meaning. But what should it truly be attributed to? In this image, resistance is not an empty slogan—it is flesh, it is a wound, it is an uncomfortable presence. Black bodies—and queer, trans, migrant bodies—are still seen as threats in hegemonic territories. These are bodies that disturb and disrupt, that are censored, persecuted and violated simply for existing. 

Martiel reminds us, through his radical gesture, that not all bodies carry the same weight. This image embodies the power of dissent and reveals, without compromise, how far we still are from inhabiting a truly just world. 

This feature was published in Foam Magazine 67, Test of Time, in 2025. To read the full magazine, order FM#67 

About the artist

CARLOS MARTIEL lives and work in New York. His works have been included in 57th Venice Biennale, Italy and he has had performances at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and El Museo del Barrio in NYC, The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. He has received several awards, including the Maestro Doble Latinx Art Prize.

About the author

LUIS JUÁREZ is an editor, curator, and cultural practitioner specializing in photography, currently based between Buenos Aires and New York. He develops artistic projects and produces books, magazines, exhibitions, and art fairs. He is the Editor and Director of Balam, the first and only queer magazine dedicated to contemporary photography in Latin America, and the Founder and Director of MIGRA, the Buenos Aires Art Book Fair. Juárez is a member of the Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina (Argentine Trans Memory Archive), a space dedicated to the protection, construction, and vindication of trans memory, where he coordinates its publishing house. He is currently pursuing an M.A. in Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York. 

South Body, 2019, a performance by Cuban artist Carlos Martiel. Courtesy the artist and Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles 


Test of Time: Luis Juarez To celebrate Foam’s 25th anniversary, Foam Magazine’s latest issue Test of Time features a special s [...]
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Test of Time: Luis Juarez