{"data":{"id":"11227","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":11227,"topgoose_id":1344,"tms_id":11227,"display_name":"Daniel Joseph Martinez","sort_name":"Martinez Daniel Joseph","display_date":"1957–","begin_date":"1957","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eDaniel Joseph Martinez has implemented\nnearly every available artistic medium—\ntext, photography, painting, sculpture, video,\nperformance, and even motorized\nanimatronic self-portraits—in works that\nexamine individual and collective identity and\nreveal tensions between political activism\nand personal culpability. Martinez developed\n\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/33379\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eDivine Violence\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e from a research project\naimed at cataloguing every twentieth- and\ntwenty-first-century organization that\nsanctions the use of violence for political\nends. Ninety-two hand-lettered names\nappear on two-by-three-foot wooden panels\ncoated with gold automotive paint. Martinez\nselected the color for its associations,\nwhich range, as he has explained, from\n“the Renaissance and religion to precious\nmineral and economic considerations.”\nPresented floor to ceiling in an installation\nthat fills a room, \u003cem\u003eDivine Violence \u003c/em\u003eimmerses\nthe viewer in a gridded, gilded environment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMartinez implements a “flattening\nout of political ideologies” in the project,\nwhereby a globe-spanning range of\nresistance movements and state-run\nagencies appear side by side. Included are\ngroups as seemingly disparate as the\nVigorous Burmese Student Warriors and\nthe Central Intelligence Agency. Yet, every\norganization on his ongoing list “claims\nthe same thing: to be right, to be moral, to\nbe ethical, and . . . to be fighting in the name\nof God.” The artist derived the installation’s\ntitle from Walter Benjamin’s 1921 essay\n“Critique of Violence,” a text in which the\nphilosopher considers circumstances\nunder which violence is acceptable. While\nMartinez boldly advocates for “the end\nof useful politics, as we know it,” he\nremains optimistic. \u003cem\u003eDivine Violence\u003c/em\u003e prompts\nviewers to consider embracing what he\nenvisions as “an intertextual and intercultural\nsociety,” one that might move humanity\nforward toward an “unimagined future.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500116651","wikidata_id":"Q5217724","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:21:28.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-11T07:02:10.380-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/11227/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/11227/exhibitions"}}}}