Joiri Minaya, The Cloaking of the statue of Christopher Columbus behind the Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami, Florida, 2019. dye-sublimation print on spandex fabric and wood scructure. Photos by Zachary Balber, commissioned by Fringe Projects Miami. Courtesy of the artist.
Marking Monuments
January 22 – March 6, 2021
USF Contemporary Art Museum Lee and Victor Leavengood Gallery + Online
Marking Monuments is curated by Sarah Howard, USF Curator of Public Art and Social Practice; and organized by the USF Contemporary Art Museum.
ONLINE EXHIBITION
Exhibition Home // Essay by Sarah Howard // Foreword + Acknowledgements
Ariel René Jackson // Joiri Minaya // Karyn Olivier in collaboration with Trapeta B. Mayson // John Sims // Monument Lab
Joiri Minaya, The Cloaking of the statues of Ponce de Leon at the Torch of Friendship and Christopher Columbus behind the Bayfront Park Amphitheatre in Miami, Florida, 2019. Archival pigment prints presented on custom wallpaper patterns. Courtesy of the artist. Photographs within the installation: The Cloaking of the statue of Christopher Columbus behind the Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami, Florida; The Cloaking of the statue of Ponce de Leon at the Torch of Friendship on Biscayne Blvd, Miami, Florida, dye-sublimation print on spandex fabric and wood scructure. Photos by Zachary Balber, commissioned by Fringe Projects Miami. Courtesy of the artist. Installation view of Marking Monuments exhibition at USF Contemporary Art Museum. Photo: Will Lytch.
Joiri Minaya, The Cloaking of the statue of Christopher Columbus behind the Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami, Florida, 2019. dye-sublimation print on spandex fabric and wood scructure. Photos by Zachary Balber, commissioned by Fringe Projects Miami. Courtesy of the artist.
Joiri Minaya, The Cloaking of the statue of Christopher Columbus behind the Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami, Florida, 2019. dye-sublimation print on spandex fabric and wood scructure. Photos by Zachary Balber, commissioned by Fringe Projects Miami. Courtesy of the artist.
Joiri Minaya, The Cloaking of the statue of Ponce de Leon at the Torch of Friendship on Biscayne Blvd, Miami, Florida, 2019. dye-sublimation print on spandex fabric and wood scructure. Photos by Zachary Balber, commissioned by Fringe Projects Miami. Courtesy of the artist.
Joiri Minaya, The Cloaking of the statue of Ponce de Leon at the Torch of Friendship on Biscayne Blvd, Miami, Florida, 2019. dye-sublimation print on spandex fabric and wood scructure. Photos by Zachary Balber, commissioned by Fringe Projects Miami. Courtesy of the artist.
Installation view of Marking Monuments exhibition at USF Contemporary Art Museum. Left: Ariel René Jackson. Right: Joiri Minaya. Photo: Will Lytch.
Installation view of Marking Monuments exhibition at USF Contemporary Art Museum. Left: Ariel René Jackson. Right: Joiri Minaya. Photo: Will Lytch.
Installation view of Marking Monuments exhibition at USF Contemporary Art Museum. Left: Joiri Minaya. Right: John Sims. Photo: Will Lytch.
Joiri Minaya, Proposal for artistic intervention on the Columbus statue in front of the Government House in Nassau, The Bahamas, 2017. Archival pigment print, 5 x 7 in. postcards. Courtesy of the artist. Installation view of Marking Monuments exhibition at USF Contemporary Art Museum.Photo: Will Lytch.
Joiri Minaya, The Cloakings
Artist Joiri Minaya’s series The Cloakings employs concealment as a creative strategy for intervention, transforming the colonial figures of Christopher Columbus and Ponce de Leon with coverings stripping them of their identities. Using the aesthetics of early colonizers’ botanical illustrations, Minaya subverts the decorative nature of the imagery with colorful patterns of tropical plants possessing dual powers for both healing and poison. Patterns illustrating manchineel trees, castor bean plants, yaupon holly, coontie palms and rompe saraguey weave the Indigenous and Afro-diasporic histories of resistance and rituals of protection into the fabric cloakings. The redressed statues become symbols of strength and resilience in the face of contemporary colonialization. Minaya’s framed photo-documentation of two public interventions in Miami, Florida, commissioned by Fringe Projects, are mounted on fields of wallpaper replicating The Cloaking patterns. A rendering of the proposed intervention for the Government House in Nassau, Bahamas, which was unable to be realized, is accompanied by public responses to the proposal elicited on tourist souvenir postcards.
Joiri Minaya
Joiri Minaya (b. 1990) is a U.S. born and Dominican-raised multidisciplinary artist living and working in New York City. Her practice confronts historic and contemporary representations of black and brown womanhood, tropical identity, and the Gaze in order to decolonize and subvert imposed histories, and hierarchical representations of culture. Minaya has exhibited across the United States and internationally, including the Caribbean. She has received grants from Artadia, the Nancy Graves Foundation, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Minaya has received recognition and awards from XXV Concurso de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes, Centro de la Imagen (D.R.), and the XXVII Biennial at the Museo de Arte Moderno (D.R). She participated in residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Madison, ME); Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY); Bronx Museum’s AIM Program; Lower East Side Printshop (NYC); Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens, NY); Art Omi (Ghent, NY); and Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT).
Marking Monuments is made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Stanton Storer Embrace the Arts Foundation, IRA Initiatives for Social Justice Fund, USFCAM Art for Community Engagement (ACE) Fund, the Lee and Victor Leavengood Endowment, and the Florida Department of State.
