On a humid afternoon last Friday, my partner and I walked through Chinatown to the Baxter Camera Club of New York. We had an appointment with a good friend and previous Womanly advisor, Corrine Y. Gordon. Corrine is the curator of I’m here to entertain you, but only during my shift. It’s a stunning and vibrant exhibit that captures the artist's experience of growing up in the Dominican Republic and navigating a different life in the United States. Joiri Minaya imagines her experience through large format photographs and the construction of the female subject in relation to landscape and “tropical” environments. She displays breathtaking photographs of women in custom head-to-toe printed bodysuits that mimic tropical flora, and poses them in seemingly natural environments that have been altered by man. Curated against bold prints and moments where our entire being as women must exude power, the small gallery engulfs you into a world of solitude that is broken by color and a sense of belonging to two or more locations; challenging what it means to be truly at home.
The exhibition features new works from Minaya’s ongoing Containers series, initiated in 2015, that stems from a Google search of “Dominican Women”, where Minaya found specific and repeated poses. Her exhibit’s focus draws parallels between nature and femininity while also accessing the male gaze. The title I'm here to entertain you, but only during my shift dares to embody that gaze. It establishes a relationship between you and the work while drawing attention to her subject’s performative nature and the audience’s position as an active observer.
A special treat behind the glorious tangent was a short moving image that incorporates voice recordings and written text that were strategically paired to the location and bodysuits.
“As the series continues to be reimagined through new mediums, this exhibition will be the first to present the collage alongside her continued photographs, video, and text.”
Exhibition previously on display at Baxter Camera Club of New York.
Joiri Minaya (1990) is a Dominican-United Statesian multi-disciplinary artist whose recent works focus on destabilizing historic and contemporary representations of an imagined tropical identity. Minaya attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales in Santo Domingo (2009), the Altos de Chavón School of Design (2011) and Parsons the New School for Design (2013). She has participated in residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Guttenberg Arts, Smack Mellon, the Bronx Museum’s AIM Program and the NYFA Mentoring Program forImmigrant Artists, Red Bull House of Art, the Lower East Side Printshop and Art Omi. She has been awarded a Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship as well as grants by the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation and the Nancy Graves Foundation. Minaya’s work is in the collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno and the Centro León Jiménes in the Dominican Republic.
Corrine Y. Gordon is a curator and programmer who was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. Currently based in Brooklyn, Gordon served as the co-curator of the inaugural Southeast Queens Biennial at York College and has organized exhibitions at Welancora Gallery, Rush Arts’ Corridor Gallery, and Bishop Gallery, all located in Brooklyn. Gordon is also the co-founder and Director of Art & Programming at MYÜZ Inc., a visual content label that pairs visual artists with distinguished academics to produce a catalogue of original content. Lastly, Gordon works in the Special Events department at the world-famous Apollo Theater. Gordon received a Masters of Arts in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art at the University of Virginia, with a minor in Media Studies.
