ABOUT

Pilar Côté is a multidisciplinary artist and curator who is currently based in Waawiiyaataanong (Detroit, Michigan). Operating at the dynamic intersection of pop surrealism, portraiture, folk art, and abstraction, Côté constructs a visual and performative language that interrogates feminism, cultural identity, protest, and empowerment with unflinching beauty and emotional gravity. Across painting, sculpture, installation, performance art, and spoken word poetry, she intertwines the luminous with the austere—layering vibrant color, ancestral art techniques, and kinetic movement into narratives of resistance, reclamation, and self-determination. A self-taught artist, Côté draws upon a rich multicultural heritage to weave stories that are at once deeply personal and universally resonant, revealing a profound commitment to storytelling as both an aesthetic and political act.

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Côté's practice is distinguished not only by its formal range but by the urgency and intentionality of its content. Her work confronts the erasure of marginalized histories, amplifies voices that resist injustice, and challenges the systemic structures of misogyny, colonization, and capitalism that have long shaped the art world and the broader social landscape. She approaches her art as both an invitation and a call to action—a celebration of life's vibrancy and a provocation to confront complex, often uncomfortable truths. As an abolitionist and community builder, she is dedicated to fostering solidarity, well-being, and social impact, encouraging viewers to sit with discomfort and emerge with deeper awareness.

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Her exhibition history reflects a practice of extraordinary ambition and reach. Côté's work has been exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, where her relationship with the institution spans nearly a decade—from Ofrendas and Día de los Muertos cultural installations beginning in 2016 to the landmark 2020 exhibition Ofrendas: Celebrating el Día de Muertos, which featured her cultural installation Sisterhood of Resistance as part of the museum's first-ever exhibition to include a companion virtual exhibit. This pioneering moment signaled Côté's early and prescient engagement with emerging technologies as vehicles for artistic expression and expanded access.

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In 2024, Côté's Truth to Power—a powerful body of work encompassing both visual art and poetry—was selected for inclusion in a capsule collection of 222 artists whose works were sent to the lunar surface aboard the Space Blue Lunaprise Mission. Notably, her contribution is the only work in the collection to amplify the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's (MMIW) Movement, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #5: Gender Equality and Empowering Women and Girls. Côté has described this extraordinary achievement as a testament to her belief in the boundless possibilities of artistic expression in an era of unprecedented art appreciation—a statement that encapsulates the visionary scope of her practice.

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Since the lunar landing, Côté's career has continued to accelerate with significant momentum. In 2024, she was invited to exhibit in the Original Americans: A Native American Story in Art exhibition, presented by the Federal Home Loan Bank in both Indianapolis, Indiana, and Detroit, Michigan. Two of her paintings—Nala's Ribbon Dress and Sisterhood of Resistance—were acquired by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis for their permanent collection, a notable institutional acknowledgment of her work's cultural and artistic significance. A third painting, Unwritten Legacy, Undeniable Roots, is featured in the institution's 2025–2026 Roots exhibition. Additional 2024 highlights include selection for the Future of the Arts exhibition at Bitbasel Gallery during Miami Art Week at the Sagamore; exhibitions at NFTNYC at the Javits Center in New York; the Bitbasel x Lunaprise Museum Launch at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral; and presentations at Vamonos Gallery in Detroit for the Presencia and Cambiada exhibitions. In 2025, her Sisterhood of Resistance artwork was selected to grace the cover of the Anti-Misogyny Club Journal, June Edition—a fitting tribute to a work that has become emblematic of her broader mission.

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Côté is equally recognized as a compelling speaker and thought leader. She has served as a featured panelist and speaker at NFTNYC in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025, as well as at Bitbasel's When Worlds Collide artist panel at G Gallery in New York. In Detroit, she hosted and spoke on the Land, Legacy & Stewardship panel at the Museum of Contemporary Art and delivered an artist talk at the Galleria of the Detroit Public Library for the Original Americans exhibition. Her earlier presentations and workshops at the Detroit Institute of Arts—including a celebrated 2015 reading as Frida Kahlo for the Art as a Weapon: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit program at the Concert of Colors—demonstrate her longstanding dedication to public engagement and cultural education.

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Côté's exhibition history is expansive and global, spanning physical, virtual, and augmented reality platforms. She has shown at institutions and galleries including the LA Convention Center (Fabrik Gallery, LA Art Show), the Superlative Gallery during Bali Art Week, the Edition Hotel in New York, the Neal Digital Gallery in Beijing, and venues across Miami, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Denver, Austin, Detroit, and beyond. Her virtual and AR exhibitions—through platforms such as Spatial VR, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, AltspaceVR, and Illust AR—have positioned her as a leading figure in the integration of contemporary art with emergent digital technologies.

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Central to Côté's mission is her advocacy for equity in the arts. Since 2019, she has been at the forefront of innovation within the art market, bridging the gap between creatives and novel technologies—including augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and blockchain—while building toward a new creator economy that transcends traditional gatekeeping and institutional biases. Her curatorial work is vast: between 2019 and 2024, she curated and co-curated twenty-two NFT art exhibitions featuring Detroit and international artists across IRL, VR, and AR platforms, working with more than 800 global artists and a variety of esteemed teams. Her Momentum Is Ours exhibition, dedicated to ending violence against women, is featured on the United Nations' global map for their Orange the World campaign—a distinction that underscores the tangible social impact of her curatorial vision. Earlier in her career, she curated the CanSpace Graffiti Art Festival for the City of Toronto's Culture and Tourism division, demonstrating a lifelong commitment to public art and community engagement.

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Côté's leadership extends well beyond the studio. She serves as Board Chair and Art Director of the Waawiiyaataanong Indigenous Arts Council in Detroit, a trustee of Vizmesh.io (a digital curation platform), and a member of the executive board at StorytimeDAO. She is a Detroit Equity Action Lab fellow (cohort 6) and ambassador with the Damon J. Keith Civil Rights Center at the Wayne State University School of Law—reflecting her deep engagement with racial equity, civil rights, and systemic change.

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Her creative foundations are multifaceted and interdisciplinary. Côté's background as a choreographer and DJ profoundly informs her performance art, imbuing it with rhythm, physicality, and an intuitive understanding of audience and space. Her early career included creative direction of over one hundred fashion shows for brands such as Versace, DKNY, J. Lindeberg, Diesel, Nike, Escada, Guess, FUBU, and Parasuco. She choreographed and/or performed in more than forty-five music videos and live performances, two television dance series, and three international music tours—collaborating or performing with artists including Eminem, Tito Puente Jr., Alanis Morissette, Deee-Lite, Tiësto, Ferry Corsten, and others. Her choreography and performance contributed to a Much Music Video Award for Best Video of the Year for Broken Bones by Love Inc. (BMG). Her DJ residencies and festival appearances across North America span Deep House, Techno, Afrobeat, and Latin music, further enriching the rhythmic and cultural textures of her art.

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Côté's spoken word poetry has been recorded and released across multiple projects, including a contribution on Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah Pt. 2 (Universal/Motown), as well as collaborations on recordings with Esteban Adame, DJ Rhenalt, Sean Miller, Tom De Neef, and the Holotopia collective. Her poetry and art have been published in Riverwise Magazine, the Anti-Misogyny Club Journal, and the We The People campaign literature, and her poetry has been performed at venues and events from the Brewery Artwalk in Los Angeles to the Artists for Bernie Sanders Showcase in Chicago, to the City of Detroit's Welcoming Week.

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Her works are held in the permanent collection of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis, the Lunaprise Museum (lunar and virtual), and in private collections in London, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Detroit, and on the blockchain.

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Côté's art is, at its core, an act of radical storytelling—one that insists on the visibility of those whom dominant systems have sought to silence. In a global art landscape where fewer than eight percent of artworks in major cultural institutions are created by women or artists of color, her practice stands as both a corrective and a beacon. She reminds us that art is not merely a mirror of the world as it is, but a powerful instrument for imagining—and building—the world as it could be. Change, as she articulates, begins with awareness; it inspires courage and an opportunity to live purposefully. Art can impact the world.

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Collections include: Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis (permanent collection); Lunaprise Museum, Moon; and private collections in London, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Detroit, and on the blockchain.

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