New York, NY – February 13, 2025 – The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation is pleased to announce its spring 2025 programming, taking place during
Joiri Minaya’s solo exhibition
Geographic Bodies at
The 8th Floor, which opens on March 13.
The Sight/Geist series for local emerging film and performance artists returns for its fifth season with solo performances by Marcelline Mandeng Nken on March 20, Kevin Quiles Bonilla on April 17, and Jake Sokolov-Gonzalez on May 15. On view through June 14, Geographic Bodies will celebrate its final week with a discussion featuring Joiri Minaya with writers and curators Ashleigh Deosaran and Eileen Jeng Lynch on June 12.
All events are free and open to the public, taking place at The 8th Floor, 17 W 17th St, NYC. RSVPs are encouraged via the individual links below.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Thursday, March 13, 6-8pm
Joiri Minaya: Geographic Bodies
Opening Reception
Details & RSVP Here
Join us for the opening of Geographic Bodies, a solo project show examining the complexities within Joiri Minaya’s obsessively researched and elaborately produced works. The exhibition includes preparatory studies from multiple series made by the artist over the past ten years. After March 13, gallery hours will be Thursdays-Saturdays 11am-6pm (or by appointment) through June 14.
Thursday, March 20, 6-8pm
Marcelline Mandeng Nken: Rush Hour
Performance & Discussion
Details & RSVP Here
Rush Hour is a performance-installation that unfolds inside a moving train. Exploring migration, displacement, and time travel, this surrealist work links the concept of Sankofa, a call back into history to remember, with the theory of self-reference as fertile ground for sculptural forms, spatial interventions, and movement phrases. Rush Hour disrupts dichotomies between body and machine, nature and industry, stellar motion and mechanical time. Premiering the second of three acts for The 8th Floor’s Sight/Geist series, the performance will be followed by a discussion between Mandeng Nken and Charles de Agustin, Programs and Engagement Manager at the Foundation.
Thursday, April 17, 6-8pm
Kevin Quiles Bonilla: Study of Piles
Performance & Discussion
Details & RSVP Here
Kevin Quiles Bonilla presents a new iteration of his lecture-performance Study of Piles, using the concept of the pile as a catalyst to explore various moments, places, and people, specifically imagery from Puerto Rico’s political history. The artist approaches the pile as a universal structure that transcends geographical, cultural, and political barriers, asking how we can utilize these often-overlooked yet pervasive structures within the urban landscape as symbols to reflect the human condition. The piece will be followed by a discussion between Quiles Bonilla and George Bolster, Curator at the Foundation.
Thursday, May 15, 6-8pm
Jake Sokolov-Gonzalez: Essential Tremors
Performance & Discussion
Details & RSVP Here
Essential Tremors is a piece of live cinema that traces the knotted influences that surround a single vibrational nexus: a phone call between a boy and his father on September 11, 1973, the day of the coup d’etat in Santiago, Chile. Using fixed media, an improvised score, live narration, raw copper, and live video splicing, the performance reflects on the extractive realities of digital life, the material legacy of colonial neoliberalism, and the potential of vibration as an interpretive instrument of history. Part of the ongoing Sight/Geist series, the piece will be followed by a discussion between Sokolov-Gonzalez and Charles de Agustin, Programs and Engagement Manager the Foundation.
Thursday, June 12, 6-8pm
Joiri Minaya in Conversation with Ashleigh Deosaran and Eileen Jeng Lynch
Details & RSVP Here
In the final week of Geographic Bodies, Joiri Minaya will be joined by academic Ashleigh Deosaran, writer of the exhibition’s catalogue essay, and Eileen Jeng Lynch, Director of Curatorial Programs at the Bronx Museum for a discussion expanding upon Minaya’s practice in both analogue and digital methods of production and the artist’s engagement with the excavation of post-colonial identity.
About the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
The Foundation believes in art as a cornerstone of cohesive, sustainable communities and greater participation in civic life. In its mission to make art available to the broader public, in particular to underserved communities, the Foundation provides direct support to, and facilitates partnerships between, cultural organizations and advocates of social justice across the public and private sectors. Through grantmaking, the Foundation supported cross-disciplinary work connecting art with social justice via experimental collaborations, as well as extending cultural resources to organizations and areas of New York City in need. sdrubin.org
About The 8th Floor
The 8th Floor is an independent exhibition and event space established in 2010 by Shelley and Donald Rubin to promote artistic and cultural initiatives. Inspired by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, the gallery is committed to broadening the access and availability of art to New York audiences. Seeking further cultural exchange, The 8th Floor explores the potential of art as an instrument for social change in the 21st century, through an annual program of innovative contemporary art exhibitions and an events program comprised of performances, salon-style discussions, and those organized by external partners. the8thfloor.org
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For media inquiries, please contact: Max Kruger-Dull, [email protected] 212.675.1800
Image description: A performer silhouetted by a large projection of green and orange microbes, with small pieces of technology surrounding her on the floor.
