From Early March to Late June Jynx Prado exhibited their first solo exhibition, curated by John Spiak, since their post-graduation.
Press Release for the exhibition:
Februrary 2022 BY GCAC
Jynx Prado: Intimidating Intimacy
Featured in:
FRIEZE ISSUE 226 VENICE EDITION (Americas Section) (Page 130)
ForYourArt (Website)
KRCW Ad (Radio April 25th- June 6th 2022)
Intimidating Intimacy is a recreated documentation of a video performance from a year prior, represented in a multimedia installation. With a reflection of time, the work on exhibition revisits the past performance with a deeper understanding of body, mind, and self-worth as a queer individual. The objects manifest as three-dimensional stills of performative action through a broad range of materials. They recontextualize Jynx’s intimidating, intimate moments with past partners as a love letter to themself.
Source: GCAC Jynx Prado Article
Works in the exhibition
The Space itself:
The exhibition consists of several sculptures that rests agsinst the walls, armeatures and on the floor that are all humanoid in form and colorful in its presentation. The first noticable feature of this entire show is the walls itself that are a fuchsia pink that is considered my signature color. I experimented with site specific installs with painted walls and the one that reflected and absorbed color really well for me was this color and when I was asked if I was interested in painting the walls a certain color I was more than thrilled. I love when colors bounce around, get reactive and vibrate together. The way how the colors move while inamimate makes it feel more alive to me. The colors almost make the sculptures feel as if they can move at any moment and I wanted to work with that. The size of the room was perfect for the amount of works I brought in that made it felt like a dance room or ball room that had a happening in it. I felt that each sculpture had to have its own personality, its own story but they all needed to be aware of each other at the same time. All the sculptures had its own story to tell, their own moves to make and their own conversations with each other. Relationships should cross boundries beyond what is known and within strangers and I hope to investigate that further after this exhibition.
The Video Piece:
The single piece that was different than the rest but was a key component to all the works and the exhibitions meaning was the 14 minute long video piece “ Deflower, 2021 “ The whole idea to talk about intimidating intimacy was from the reasoning of creating that video. It was the start of 2021 nearly a year since the COVID Pandemic began and my love life was pretty rocky at the time. So much so that I decided to create a video piece based on the past relationships I have had with different people that was followed by all sorts of problems: Homophobia, biphobia, body shaming, domestic and sexual abuse and the emotional and mental struggles I experienced. After the production of the video, made during my residency with Slanguage Studios, I continued to research more deeper in the videos meaning months after and I felt that there was more to be talked about. I made photo series, sculptures and drawings based on that video and when I was asked to have the show months later I thought it was the perfect time to introduce my findings. What was shown in that exhibition was parts of those findings. Referring back to the metaphor I stated about the room being like a dance room I felt that the video was like the music playing in that room and quite literally it was the ambiance of the music that played in that video that made the eerie and yet playful nature of the show.
The Story behind the Story:
The room had several pieces that were grouped together and several that were singular. In keeping to the idea of a dance/ball room I purposely created that feeling of different crowds with their own stable and uniformed emotion while the ones that were isolated had that feeling of isolation; Lonliness and dred yet energetic and hopefulness within them. It is honestly funny that it ended up that way because one of my past relationships involved a ball that I attended with them that gave the same feelings since we were separated due to a homophobic faculty member that was present in the floor that saw my date and I dance together in the slow dance session. I guess you can say a story leaked into the story that was recreated for this show that being the ballroom mishap forming within my overall take of past relationships from the video. Like a subconsious thought of my past just coming in as a co-curator to the show setting themselves into place to add new meaning. Not to say that the ideas behind the creation of the works is now at a different meaning based on the relevation I had at the time but it just shows how internal trauma can be shown in times of the most unexpected. It genuinely comforted me knowing that I can take that memory and just use it like an adhesive for my exhbitions assemblage instead of it acting as some sort of stain on it. Overall the assembly of different groupings and single pieces really did speak more for the idea of intimacy than the context of the works.
After The Fact:
From the deinstalling of my work I just kept thinking that there was some irony in it all. The show itself was about my intimate moments with past connections as well as the intimidating moments that I feel anyone has or can experience within relationships. However I felt that for something to be intimate it has to be personal, familiar but moreover private. Now that the story is out and into the public I feel that some of that privacy is eliminated, besides the actual names of those involved are not known except for the few who know me closely and have seen these relationships happen for them to understand the symbols and meanings thrown out there to know who was brought up, and now the exhibition in itself has a new meaning. The intimate moment, I believe, now rests in the hands of those who have witnessed this exhibition; Those who were confronted with my work, who thought of, questioned and connected their own personal experiences with my own are now the vessels of the intimate moment that is what the exhibition is meant for, unless they also express in correlation to my exhibition but heck who would keep account to the many points of view who witnessed it? The world is grand yet the emotions we carry are miniscule in comparison, heavy and large personally yes, but overall small from the fact that we all experience our own intimadating, intimate moments some way shape or form. Writing that down in my note book I even felt that it brought a whole new meaning to my own thoughts on the subject and it might affect the way I carry myself into future relationships, despite that I feel confident that I only scratched the surface of it all and I’ll just keep hacking onto it till the next story leaks out of that surface.
Artist Comment:
Thank you to John Spiak, the affiliates of Grand Central Art Center and everyone who has supported and seen this exhibition. I was thrilled and grateful to have such a community space to be my first solo right out of my academic career since 2020. Intimidating Intimacy is a year long collection of works I have been inspired to work towards not just for a meditative closure for my own history of relationships but to have a deeper conversation about all kinds of relationships post-Covid Pandemic. I hope to continue my projectory to keep these conversations going years on after.
-Jynx Prado
