The Armory Show 2026

September 24–27, 2026

The Armory Show

Javits Center, New York

Uffner & Liu returns to The Armory Show with a solo presentation by Curtis Talwst Santiago as part of the Platform section, curated by Jovanna Venegas, curator at SculptureCenter, New York. The presentation coincides with Santiago’s solo exhibition, worlds, worlds, worlds, on view at Contemporary Calgary, through January 3, 2027.

Santiago is a Canadian-Trinidadian artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, film, and his celebrated Infinity Series of miniature dioramas constructed inside jewelry boxes. Intricate and intimate, these palm-sized worlds bring personal memory into dialogue with broader histories of migration, race, and cultural identity, moving fluidly between scenes of everyday life and moments of social and political consequence. Born in Edmonton to Trinidadian immigrant parents, Santiago draws upon his experience between Caribbean and Canadian cultures to create works in which seemingly disparate places, histories, and narratives converge.

What Gold Can Do (2026) is a captivating, Afrofuturist addition to the Infinity Series. Built within an antique jewelry box, this miniature tableau reframes the athletic field as a battleground. In recent years, Santiago has explored the intersection of contemporary art and sport, particularly soccer, through paintings and sculptures that treat the game as a cultural language. The work considers the pitch as a site of identity, community, and belonging, while also acknowledging the tensions that run through the sport—racial, nationalist, and political—and the histories that shadow its crowds and rituals. In Dingolay FC, Dance Through the Defence (2025), the artist’s alter-ego, J’ouvert Knight, appears as a player captured mid-stride. Transformed through thousands of glass beads, the valiant figure foregrounds Santiago’s meticulous, labour-intensive approach to art-making. Drawing its title from the pre-dawn celebrations of liberation during Trinidadian Carnival, the armoured knight subverts the traditionally white, European archetype of medieval chivalry. Santiago’s sculptures transcend their utilitarian functions to become precious relics, actively reinserting diasporic narratives into the contemporary record.

Earlier this summer, one of Santiago’s paintings was presented at East 9th Street and University Place in New York by Façade Foundation, a public arts nonprofit transforming the city’s scaffold netting into a platform for contemporary art. 

About the Artist

Curtis Talwst Santiago (b. 1979, Edmonton, Alberta) studied as an apprentice of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Santiago has exhibited internationally at institutions such as Lenbacchaus, Munich, Germany (2025); the National Art Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario (2024); Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (2023); ASU Art Museum, Tempe, AZ (2023); The Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary (2022); Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (2022, 2021); The Drawing Center, New York, NY (2022); The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2018); Eli and Edythe Broad Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (2018); The New Museum, New York, NY (2017); The Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL (2017); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada (2017); and the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2016); among others.The artist was included in the inaugural 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art in Toronto, Canada, the SITE Santa Fe SITELines.2018 Biennial, Casa Tomada, in Santa Fe, NM, and was featured in the 2018 and 2022 Biennale de Dakar in Dakar, Senegal. Santiago has had recent solo exhibitions at Nir Altman, Munich, Germany (2025); Hiro Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2025); Martina Simeti Gallery, Milan, Italy (2024, 2022); Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada (2023); Nir Altman, Munich, Germany (2023); Art Gallery of Alberta, Canada (2022); and Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY (2020).His work is in the permanent collections of Art Gallery of Alberta, Alberta, Canada; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; Nevada Art Museum, Reno, NV; and Lebenbachhaus, Munich, Germany. Santiago lives and works in Potsdam, Germany.