Juan Castillo spent part of his childhood in the Pedro de Valdivia Saltpeter Works in the northern Chilean Pampas, an event that marked his personal and artistic career. After studying architecture for two years at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, and engraving at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago, Juan Castillo joined, between 1978 and 1983, the Colectivo de Acciones de Arte (C.A.D.A.), a multidisciplinary group composed by Lotty Rosenfeld, Diamela Eltit, Fernando Balcells and Raúl Zurita.

Castillo’s practice extends through actions that fuse the social and the artistic. His works develop post-conceptual, post-minimalist and performative precepts, where poverty and segregation are confronted head-on, with the formal freedom of post-situationism and a utopian perspective distant from aestheticization.

Questions about Latin American identity are an unavoidable part of Castillo’s work, as he addresses the phenomena of transculturation and hybridity that shape contemporary individuals and societies. Juan Castillo understands his creations as “occupations” due to their intention and ability to spread throughout the city through various channels and media. The epistemological interaction between the artist and the public becomes a fundamental part of his work. His position as a lucid witness capable of (re)constructing past scenarios makes his ideas-forces develop in cycles that the artist temporarily closes to take up again in the future.

Juan Castillo has exhibited in important international institutions, such as the Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden), the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC – Santiago, Chile), or the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA – New York, United States). Furthermore, his work is part of prominent public and private collections, among which: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA – New York, United States) – both as a member of the C.A.D.A group-; Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden), Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC – Santiago, Chile), Il Posto Collection (Santiago, Chile), Atlantic Center of Modern Art (CAAM – Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain), Contemporary Art Collection of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage (Chile), Ernesto Poma Family Collection (Miami, United States), among others.