LUCIA HIERRO
(b. 1987, Washington Heights; living and working in the South Bronx)
Drawing inspiration from her Dominican-American heritage and experience studying fine arts at Yale, conceptual artist Lucia Hierro embraces principles of soft assemblage to create sculptures, sonic art, and other forms of multimedia experimentation. Through her energetic collages, featuring found components from Manhattan and the Bronx, Hierro explores the vibrant intersection of immigrant identity, class, and consumerism in contemporary New York. Hierro received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from SUNY Purchase (2010), followed by an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale School of Art (2013). She has delivered lectures at Columbia University (2019), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2019), and Maryland Institute College of Art (2019). Recent exhibitions featuring Hierro’s work include Tal Cual (Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, 2021), Marginal Costs (Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, 2021), and Vecinos (Primary Projects, Miami, 2020). Hierro received the Latinx Artist Fellowship Grant (2022) for her work. She has also participated in the Casa Quien Residency (2018), the Fountain Head Residency (2016), and the Artist in the Market Bronx Museum Residency (2013).
WORK IN THE EXHIBITION
Uptown Fugue, 2021
Sound piece
18 min. 20 sec.
Lucia Hierro’s dynamic collages examine the relationship between consumable objects and personal histories. Through experimenting with the positionality of found objects in productions like her Mercado (Market) series, Hierro draws attention to the globalized products made available to contemporary New Yorkers via American imperialism, creating diverse portraits of the people, environments, and corporations that partake in this global exchange facilitated by globalized capitalism. In the process, she examines intersectionality, placing objects suggesting different class signifiers in conjunction with one another to invite questions of how consumerism contributes to the formation of community and identity. Uptown Fugue extends this practice into the sphere of sonic art. The piece starts with an orchestra warmup, building up the sound of “high society” New York. This noise fades into the true music of New York, depicted by “found sounds” collected in South Bronx, Inwood, Washington Heights, and Brooklyn, occasionally disrupted by a recording of “Ascot Horse Race” from the movie musical My Fair Lady (1964). Hierro splices revving engines, passing car radios blasting music from different cultures, ice cream truck jingles, and conversational English and Spanish, creating an auditory portrait of the diversity reflected in the neighborhoods where the noise was collected. The piece’s dynamic panning immerses the listener into a shared culture spread across New York, speaking to diversity and intercultural community formation, while reflecting on how consumable music differs depending on its target community and purpose.
