Bernardo Montoya (Bogotá, 1979) is an artist, cultural manager, researcher, curator, and educator. His work explores the relationships between matter, memory, and transformation, articulating sculpture, installation, and interdisciplinary processes that connect art, science, and territory. Trained in Fine Arts at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and at Universidad de los Andes, he has developed a practice that combines creation, research, and the activation of archives, with an emphasis on collaborative and experimental methodologies.
He is the director and founder of Salón Comunal, a platform dedicated to circulation, education, and critical thought in contemporary art, and he is currently president of the Association of Contemporary Art Galleries of Colombia (AGAC). He has taught at the Universidad Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito. His work Semilla 1492 was permanently installed at Dante Fascells Park in Miami, and his art has been exhibited in Colombia, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Germany, Mexico, Ecuador, the United States, and Belgium. As a curator and researcher, he has developed projects that engage with art history, material ecologies, and community processes, integrating cultural management as a fundamental part of his artistic practice.
He studied Fine Arts at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, and for one year took courses at The Art League in Alexandria, Virginia. In 2006, he graduated as a visual artist from Universidad de los Andes, where he also completed a specialization in Modern and Contemporary Art History and Theory (2009). In 2020, he earned his master’s degree in Art History with the thesis “The role of Casimiro Eiger and the gallery El Callejón in shaping and accepting abstract art in Colombia, 1951–1957.”