Broadway Billboard: From the Marooned Picturesque series (Socrates)
Artist
From the Marooned Picturesque series (Socrates)
Joiri Minaya
Vinyl print
10 × 28 feet
On view July 18, 2022 – September 2023
About
The Park’s teen group, Socrateens, has curated the Broadway Billboard after conducting studio visits with a line-up of recent Socrates artist alumni. After studio visits with each artist and reviewing proposals, teens selected the work by Joiri Minaya from her series The Marooned Picturesque. Socrateens Jessica Reynoso and Tasfiya Mubasshira note about the work: “It evokes the universal experience of remembering snippets of a place and has a dreamy quality fitting to New York City.” This collaboration provides a unique opportunity for teens and future art workers to participate in the curatorial and exhibition process, and deepens our relationship with artists dedicated to the Park.
The Socrateens are: Nicole Benitez, Lyla Black, Emma Bromley, Lorraine Chan, Hanna Cardona, Alexia Dias, Zainab Hamid, Eileen Jiang, Sofia McNally, Zoë Nadal, Bianca de Nola, Carlerien Nunez, Tasfiya Mubasshira, Panayiota Psarris, Jessica Reynoso, and Tiffany Zhou.
Curatorial thoughts by our Socrateens
Hear from our teens about their curatorial process and on From the Marooned Picturesque series (Socrates)! With Alexia Dias, Zainab Hamid, and Jessica Reynoso
Transcription
Alexia: I selected Joiri’s piece because it is a simple, yet uniquely fitting piece for the calming nature-filled atmosphere of Socrates. It prepares a person walking into Socrates for the duality of the nature and artwork they’ll encounter throughout the Park. This artwork has several components to it. I think it relates to New York city’s feel. They can be overwhelming to look at at first, but once you analyze each individual piece, you’ll see that it’s very fitting and they work together to make something beautiful.
This piece had the majority of votes when we were deciding which artwork to select. It’s accurate depiction of the views you’ll see at Socrates is very interesting. If I had to describe the piece to someone who can’t see it, I would say that it was pieces of Socrates culminated into a delicate, but expansive depiction. Trees, soil, and plants all strung together into a summary of the experience at the Park. The themes in the piece that resonate with me would be the quiet and calming feel you get when you’re surrounded by nature, a result of the non-harsh colors chosen.
Zainab Hamib: I selected this piece because of the abstract form of it. It could be interpreted as many things while still grounding itself to something common. It fits with New York City’s landscape, conceptually, by bringing out the diverse perspectives and communities within the city and physically by representing the different physical elements of the park itself, which is obviously part of New York City.
The viewer should note how, while the piece calls out in reversing the colonization of natural landscapes, it also tries to reach into the dreamlike state of mind when it comes to interacting with our environment. The main theme of this piece is to call out the power of the landscape we live on and bring importance to how one’s identity plays in the role of developing their relationship with their respective environment.
This theme resonates the most with me because of the emphasis it places on people’s stories and experiences as a core element of where we live. Furthermore, it brings importance to this piece as it highlights the ever changing and ever mutating landscape around us either naturally or artificially.
The best way to describe this piece to a viewer who can’t see it would be to imagine a cool breeze sweeping through freshly cut grass while the warm sun beats down on the viewer, it brings a sense of warmth and coldness that further reflects the artist’s intention of making an artwork that is familiar yet strange. Similar to adapting to new surroundings or making attempt at recalling memories.
Finally, if this piece were an animal, I would say it reminds me of a chameleon, because of how much it blends in yet stands out as an artwork.
Jessica: This piece was selected because of how unusual and intriguing it is visually. The landscape is painted like snippets of faint memories with emphasis on certain areas. Some areas fade away creating the effect of a far away place. This fits into New York City’s landscape, as we hardly remember every detail in New York City, but we hold onto fragments of this place.
About the Artist
Joiri Minaya (b. New York, NY in 1990; lives and works in New York, NY) is a Dominican-United Statesian multi-disciplinary artist whose work investigating the female body within constructions of identity, multi-cultural social spaces and hierarchies.
Born in New York, U.S, she grew up in the Dominican Republic. She graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic (2009), the Altos de Chavón School of Design (2011) and Parsons the New School for Design (2013).
She has participated in residencies like Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Guttenberg Arts, Smack Mellon, BronxArtSpace, Bronx Museum’s AIM Program, the NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists, Transmedia Lab at MA Scène Nationale, Red Bull House of Art Detroit, Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Artist, Socrates Sculpture Park, Art Omi and Vermont Studio Center.
Minaya has exhibited internationally across the Caribbean and the U.S. She is a grantee from the Nancy Graves Foundation, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation (Emerging Artist Grant), the Joan Mitchell Foundation (Emerging Artist and Painters and Sculptors Grants), the Great prize and the Audience Award XXV Concurso de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes, the Exhibition Prize Centro de la Imagen (D.R.), and the Great Prize of the XXVII Biennial at the Museo de Arte Moderno (D.R).
CONNECT
Web: joiriminaya.com
Instagram: @joiriminaya
Twitter: @joiriminaya
Image credit: Nicholas Knight Studio
‘From the Marooned Picturesque series (Socrates)’ Joiri Minaya. Vinyl print. 10 × 28 feet.
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