“CRIMINAL”, Invidious Distinctions, 2012/2025
Performance, six rubber stamps, invisible ink, and blacklight
Opening February 27, 2025
PROXYCO Gallery, 88 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002
PROXYCO is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by Camilo Godoy, a multidisciplinary artist born in Bogotá, Colombia and based in New York, NY. Titled Términos Indignos, the exhibition will inaugurate PROXYCO’s new home at 88 Eldridge Street. The exhibition will run from February 27 – April 23 and the gallery will host an opening reception on February 27 from 6 – 8 pm. Encompassing new works as well as a performance that the artist originally developed over a decade ago, the exhibition will showcase the range of Godoy’s multidisciplinary practice that deftly and potently engages in politics, history, activism, identity, and memory.
Among the new works will be a video installation of Godoy’s performance Amor Eficaz, first performed live on May 15, 2024 at Americas Society in New York as part of the institution’s performance series and the special exhibition El Dorado: Myths of Gold Part II. In advance of the exhibition at PROXYCO, the artist reperformed an excerpt of the piece and recorded it for posterity and future presentation. In Amor Eficaz, Godoy integrates speech, dance, and music to invoke the activism of the Colombian priest Father Camilo Torres Restrepo (1929–1966). Using language from Torres Restrepo’s last speech made before he joined the revolutionary armed struggle and incorporating dance, Godoy’s performance addresses the colonial legacy of injustice, trauma, and subversive politics.
A second performance work will be activated by gallery visitors throughout the run of the exhibition. Originally conceived in 2012, the work is titled Invidious Distinctions and was inspired by the artist’s experience volunteering for the immigrant organizations First Friends and Sojourners by visiting people held in immigration detention centers in New Jersey. Regularly on Saturdays for over two years, Godoy would travel with other volunteers to detention centers to visit and speak with strangers detained and awaiting to be deported. Before entering the visiting room, visitors’ wrists were stamped with invisible ink by a security guard; and before exiting the room, each visitor’s wrist was checked under a UV light to ensure the person in detention remained in holding. Upon entering Godoy’s exhibition at PROXYCO, visitors’ wrists will similarly be stamped, with terms only revealed when their wrists are held underneath the UV light installed in the gallery.
In 2012 Godoy converted a friend’s deportation order into an etched mirror. For this exhibition the artist presents this work for the first time. When confronting this work, visitors’ own faces and bodies will reflect, forcing a visualization of oneself as a witness to the politics of immigration. Such confrontation plays a fundamental role in Godoy’s practice. In conceiving of his exhibition, the artist has reflected upon James Baldwin’s 1963 speech “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity”, in which the writer and activist asserts: “It is time to ask very hard questions and to take very rude positions. And no matter at what price.” Términos Indignos represents one artist’s response to that call — a presentation of art that forces us to contend with the state of human dignity and compassion in the struggles of our moment.
About Camilo Godoy
Camilo Godoy is an artist born in Bogotá and based in New York. He has participated in residencies in New York at the New Museum, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), Movement Research, Recess, as well as SOLARIS, Bordeaux, coleção moraes-barbosa, São Paulo. Godoy’s work has been exhibited in New York at the Brooklyn Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, CUE, OCDChinatown, PROXYCO Gallery; and Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá; Moody Center, Houston; Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Miami; UNSW Galleries, Sydney; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quito; Museum Folkwang, Essen, among others. He has performed at Americas Society, Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, New Museum, Toronto Biennial, and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm.
