Artist Profile: Joe Riley & Audrey Snyder

Joe Riley & Audrey Snyder with their piece ‘Into the ground,’ 2018, Photo courtesy the Artists

PROJECT

‘Into the ground’

BIO

Joe Riley (b. Richmond, VA in 1990; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) and Audrey Snyder (b. San Francisco, CA in 1991; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) are frequent collaborators. Their art is material-driven and focuses on stories of landscapes with the purpose of creating political and economic awareness. Riley was a participant in the Whitney Independent Study program (2016-17) and has a BFA from Cooper Union (2014). Snyder is a chef and holds a BFA from Cooper Union (2013).

Riley and Snyder have exhibited works with Futurefarmers, an artist collective group, at venues such as Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah, UAE (2017), Resistance After Nature, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford, PA (2017), and Left Coast: California Political Art, CUNY James Gallery, NY (2015), among others. They have also exhibited in Rail/Sail at FrontSpace, Kansas City, MO (2016), Tap Dat Capital, La Mama Galleria, New York, NY (2012) and Parallel Cases: A Presentation, Cooper Union School of Art, New York, NY (2012) among others. They will be exhibiting with the Freshkills Field R/D art-research project in September 2018 and the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program in Spring 2019.

CONNECT

Joe Riley

Website: joeriley.work

Instagram: @pleasedontfront

Twitter: @pleasedontfront

Audrey Snyder

Instagram: @audrey_snyder

 

ENGAGE

Audio Guide

Listen to Riley and Snyder speak about their work.

Instagram Takeover

Riley and Snyder took over the Park’s Instagram to share insights into their work.

 

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2018 Artist Fellows Joe Riley (@pleasedontfront) & Audrey Snyder (@audrey_snyder) are taking over the Park’s account today. Follow along to learn more about their collaborative work for ‘The Socrates Annual.’ …………………….. Joe Riley (b. Richmond, VA in 1990; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) and Audrey Snyder (b. San Francisco, CA in 1991; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) are frequent collaborators with one another and with the collective Futurefarmers. Their art is material and process-driven, weaving together historical and ecological understandings of urban and rural concourses. . Joe & Audrey began their project by thinking about the ground at Socrates and the image and idea of a covered car. It’s often said that one drives a car “into the ground” or “until the wheels fall off.” The images in this post and the next few to follow show what went on under the hood of their project at Socrates. . Their project begins with the emergence of Socrates Park, once an unregulated landfill and dumping area filled with debris, discarded metals, and most certainly old cars and car parts. In the 1980s a coalition of artists and community members began removing these materials and installing artworks on the site. Taking this ecological and material history as a point of departure, Joe & Audrey spent the summer at Socrates making and excavating their work. . You can find out more about ‘Into the ground’ and other work from Joe Riley & Audrey Snyder by visiting the link in profile (http://joeriley.work/intotheground/), sliding into their DM’s at @pleasedontfront & @audrey_snyder, or writing to weareintotheground@gmail.com . . #joeriley #audreysnyder #intotheground #weareintotheground #socratessculpturepark #thesocratesannual #eaf18 #socratesannual18 #socratespark

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2018 Artist Fellows Joe Riley (@pleasedontfront) & Audrey Snyder (@audrey_snyder) are taking over the Park’s account today. Follow along to learn more about their collaborative work for ‘The Socrates Annual.’ ………………………… J & A began building a likeness car-shaped steel armature in the outdoor studio at Socrates and it quickly began to rust. It felt like the iron in the car’s steel tubing was trying to get back into the ground where it once came from. . With this cycle of corrosion in mind, the artists organized a series of public rust-dyeing workshops which took place at Socrates this past summer. During the workshops, participants went out into the field to recover rusty metals from all around the grounds at Socrates. They used these materials to collectively assemble compositions on heavy canvas. The communal rust-dyes produced an abstracted imprint of discarded material: describing practices of use, abandonment, and alchemical transformations over time. . Into the ground is an object on pause, stuck in between visibility and invisibility, activity and stillness, conservation and disposal. Joe and Audrey’s work proceeds with the hope that re-imagining rust and corrosion through collaborative practice and making a sculpture, might offer new ways to re-think our relationship(s) to the ground. Maybe we can re-consider the efforts of communities, artists, and activists as an exercise of ground-building rather than ground-breaking in the practice of ecological attention and care. . You can find out more about ‘Into the ground’ and other work from Joe Riley & Audrey Snyder by visiting the link in profile (http://joeriley.work/intotheground/), sending a message to @pleasedontfront & @audrey_snyder, or writing to weareintotheground@gmail.com . . #joeriley #audreysnyder #intotheground #weareintotheground #socratessculpturepark #thesocratesannual #eaf18 #socratesannual18 #socratespark

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2018 Artist Fellows Joe Riley(@pleasedontfront) & Audrey Snyder (@audrey_snyder) are taking over the Park’s account today. Follow along to learn more about their collaborative work. …………..………… In their collaborative projects, Joe & Audrey share DIY sensibilities and commitment to holding together multiple kinds of knowledges and processes. From welding and sewing to digging and dreaming, this series of video shorts walks through the process of making/thinking ‘Into the Ground’ in the studio at Socrates. . This kind of work, time, and space is only made possible by the incredible facilities, staff, and community of Socrates Park. Against a backdrop of overwhelming gentrification throughout Queens and NYC, feral and free spaces for the incubation of art, activism, new political horizons, and renewed ecological relationships are increasingly rare and incredibly important. Organizations such as Socrates are vital to the fabric of artists, workers, locals, and visitors that form, our communities. It is through these communities, arts spaces, and solidarities that we may excite together the residue of the past as a way to exchange our experiences and signal our existence. . We ❤️ Socrates . You can find out more about ‘Into the ground’ and other work from Joe Riley & Audrey Snyder by visiting the link in profile (http://joeriley.work/intotheground/), sliding into their DM’s at @pleasedontfront & @audrey_snyder, or writing to weareintotheground@gmail.com 📽 @clemenspoole & @pleasedontfront . #joeriley #audreysnyder #intotheground #weareintotheground #socratessculpturepark #thesocratesannual #eaf18 #socratesannual18 #socratespark

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2018 Artist Fellows Joe Riley (@pleasedontfront) & @audrey_snyder are taking over the Park’s account today. Follow along to learn more about their collaborative work for ‘The Socrates Annual’ exhibition: ……………………………….. Joe Riley & Audrey Snyder’s collaborative sculpture, ‘Into the ground,’ reflects on how urban ecologies uptake and transform contaminants, and how collective bodies realize agency through ground-up organizing. A rust-dyed cover, created through participatory workshops over the summer, shrouds a car-shaped steel armature, engaging with Socrates Sculpture Park’s history of transformation from landfill to public park. Into the ground calls on visibility and invisibility of discarded objecthood: is it an abandoned vehicle or a public monument? A rusted relic or a deliberate composition? A landfill or a park? . These photos document the opening and final installation of ‘Into the ground’ at Socrates. The work will be up through March 24, before it drives(?) away to the next parking place. Joe & Audrey extend a warm and rusty embrace to all the friends and fam of Socrates Park who joined them on this journey. It has been a wild and wonderful ride. . You can find out more about ‘Into the ground’ and other work from Joe Riley & Audrey Snyder by visiting the following link http://joeriley.work/intotheground/, sliding into their DM’s at @pleasedontfront & @audrey_snyder, or writing to weareintotheground@gmail.com 📷 @krisicwalsh & @natalieelizconn . . #joeriley #audreysnyder #intotheground #weareintotheground #socratessculpturepark #thesocratesannual #eaf18 #socratesannual18 #socratespark

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Programming

1. As part of their Fellowship at the Park, Riley & Snyder led a series of rust-dyeing workshops–>


Image courtesy the Artists.

2. Socrates partners with The Cooper Union – Riley & Snyder’s alma mater – to offer a free curator-led tour of the exhibition–>

3. At the exhibition Closing Party, Riley & Snyder presented ‘Along for the ride’ – a collaborative performance with Alexa West, Tyler Berrier, and Tenaya Kheller.

4. ‘Into the ground’ was installed at Clockshop’s The Bowtie Project in May 2019.

Image courtesy the Artists.

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