Monira Foundation: 2024 Year in Review
Looking back, 2024 was a great year at the Monira Foundation. It included innovative exhibitions, many community programs and events, and a fantastic group of artists in residence. We could not have done this without your support, and we hope to continue this work in 2025! Here is a glimpse into the highlights of what the Monira Foundation has been up to this past year:
Exhibitions
This exhibition highlighted pieces from the Mana Collection, including works from Francesco Clemente, Ron Gorchov, Carmen Herrera, and more.
This exhibition showcased Heizer’s unique screen prints made at Gemini in 1975.
Featuring Wiley’s exploration of color and geometric form, this exhibition showcased the artist’s experimental and spontaneous working process.
Reel to Reel – To Jonas Mekas by Chihiro Ito
Paying tribute to Jonas Mekas, Chihiro Ito enhanced Mekas’ archives in this exhibition and created new works using the archives as an inspiration to create new meaning.
The Only Thing Keeping Me Alive Is Dreaming – Saint Piñero
As a part of the Mekas Fellowship, the Monira Foundation also exhibited by Saint Piñero. This exhibition showcased photography capturing queer individuals in their daily lives, serving as a powerful testament to the resilience and challenges faced by this marginalized community.
Chroma Key After Me, Ariella Granados
In this exhibition, Granados explores nuances of identity by drawing on family history, socioeconomic status, and disability to create soundscapes, sculptures, and videos, expressing the notion of a disabled utopia.
Latin for “movement of the mind,” Motus Mentis features the artwork of graduating seniors from the Stevens Institute of Technology Visual Arts & Technology program. In projects that traverse topics from memory and grief to mental health and social dynamics, they work across physical and digital media to survey the shifting landscape of contemporary culture.
This exhibition showcased the intersection between art and introspection through a series of five paintings that tell the story of artist Joe Diver’s adventures.
Candida Alvarez. Stretching, Nesting, Reaching, Feeling,
This exhibition highlights Candida Alvarez’s early explorations of place, movement, and inclusion, beginning with her 1981 cow series. Spanning two decades, it traces her shift from intimate collaged works to dynamic narratives, culminating in Celia (2002), a video capturing her mother making pasteles in Puerto Rico.
Chacón’s Horror Vacui series (1994-2019), presented as a site-responsive installation at Mana, featured monochrome frames with empty centers, inviting viewers to navigate shifts in color and space. While grounded in conceptual painting, the work reflected Venezuela’s kinetic art legacy, emphasizing phenomenological experience.
Exhibition: Michael Gitlin, Copper Works
Michael Gitlin’s sculptures used bent copper tubing to create dynamic, three-dimensional grids that explore form, space, and perception. With an emphasis on linear intersections and material lightness, his works engaged viewers in a shifting visual experience where the wall became a displaced pedestal.
Our ongoing exhibitions, including Memory Gap and Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost, The Only Thing Keeping Me Alive Is Dreaming, and Missing Context Long Overdue, continued to engage audiences with their evocative themes and dynamic installations.
Programs
Monira Foundation’s 2024 programs brought together artists, audiences, and local communities through workshops, talks, and performances:
- Open Book Series: This year’s series featured Jean Wolff, Rashad Wright, MM Serra, and Michael Mangieri. Each session offered insights into the creative process, from poetry and dance to publications and archival explorations. You can discover these videos by clicking on the artist’s name above.
- Open Houses: This year, we had 3 to 4 open houses in our New Jersey and Chicago locations. During these open houses, the local community could step into and explore the Artists in Residence Studios and learn more about their creative process and craft. These open houses also included various programs such as:
- Artist talks by Nyeema Morgan, Assaf Evron, and more
- Exhibitions on view for the Open House, including Mana Legacies, Michael Gitlin, Tad Wiley, and more
- Screenings of works done by Chihiro Ito and by Saint Piñero and Sage Ó Tuama
- Performances by the artists in residence, Amber Sloan, and two musicians from the Con Vivo Music organization.
- Studio visits – Monira Foundation also created short videos with the artists in residence to learn about their unique creative process through short conversations about their work and ideas.
- Discovering Public Program – With this program, the Monira Foundation invited the public to engage with ongoing exhibitions and learn more about the practices of contemporary artists. Some interesting events associated with this program in 2024 include:
- Discovering Dan Flavin – featured TESTU Collective’s sonic interventions, using electromagnetic field pickup coils to reveal the unseen and unheard spatial wave patterns emitted by Flavin’s light sculptures, offering attendees a unique auditory exploration of the artworks.
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- Discovering Andy Warhol, Arnulf Rainer, John Chamberlain, and Dan Flavin – featured a collaboration with Jersey City Reads Poems, where poets presented works in dialogue with installations by Dan Flavin, Arnulf Rainer, Andy Warhol, and John Chamberlain, creating a multisensory experience that intertwined visual art and language.
- Discover IDRIS – explored the dynamic intersection of technology and performance through Idris Brewster’s AI-driven augmented reality installations. This interactive program invited participants to engage with Brewster’s digital interventions in real time, challenging perceptions of space, history, and identity.
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- Discovering Arnulf Rainer – A collaboration with Con Vivo Music brought together visual art and live music, transforming Rainer’s expressive works into an immersive sonic and performative experience. The series also featured thought-provoking discussions and interdisciplinary collaborations that deepened engagement with contemporary art and its many intersections. Click here to watch the video!
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- Discover Shannon Pulusan – highlighted Pulusan’s intricate storytelling through illustration and animation, offering insights into her process and themes of identity.
- Screenings
- Mirror World Study – a performance directed by Karole Armitage
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- Over and Over, Again and Again by Allen Ruppersberg is a unique 12-hour film on the obsession of collecting and what that might sound like. Watch the trailer here
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- No World Cinema I and II: New York City Diary Films and Various Artists
- Thunder by Sonnie Wooden – This special screening featured three films, including the world premiere of Thunder. This film builds on techniques from his previous films, Godspeed and Guillotine, blending diary filmmaking, found footage, and auto-fictional elements to explore themes of intimacy and connection.
Other fun events we did this year include:
- Monira Fridays: Emerge CYBERPUNK – an event that brought the community together through live music, art, a selection of vendors, and set installations by emerging artists and creatives, creating a Cyberpunk-themed immersive experience.
- Maker Space Activity: Flavin in Motion – an activity that explored ways of seeing and drawing while incorporating motion. This Maker Space activity also utilized fluorescent light installations of Dan Flavin.
Residencies
Our residency program thrived in 2024, welcoming a remarkable cohort of artists who pushed the boundaries of their practices. Here is a list of the artists we had the pleasure of working with and links to their works:
And, in the Mekas Fellowship, we had a wonderful time working with:
As we close the chapter in 2024, the Monira Foundation remains deeply grateful for the artists, supporters, and audiences who make our work possible. Together, we continue to celebrate creativity and foster an inclusive space for artistic exploration. Here’s to an even more inspiring 2025!
Warm wishes,
All of us at the Monira Foundation
