Joe Minter
(b. 1943)Throughout his practice, Joe Minter recovers and reassembles found and discarded materials into works of art, an extension of his work as a cultural historian.
Biography
Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Minter vividly remembers the Jim Crow era and the civil rights movement. After serving in the military for two years, Minter worked in metal construction for over a decade, making a range of products and machinery. He left the construction industry for health reasons but continued to craft with metal by making sculptural works.
Minter has since pursued a self-taught practice, creating works that honor and commemorate Black American history. In 1989, Minter began making African Village in America, a site-specific installation located at his home in Titusville, Alabama. Minter’s village includes an extensive assembly of signs, found metal objects, and assemblage works that chart both local and global events of the past and present, with particular attention paid to those that involve or have affected Black Americans. Minter has also painted sporadically since the 1960s, a practice he has pursued consistently since 2021. Minter’s vibrant paintings are didactic and expansive in subject matter, ranging from nature scenes to images that recall the collective trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Minter has participated in exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Royal Academy of Art, London, among others. His work was also included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. In 2024, he was one of four Artist Choice grantees from the Ruth Foundation for the Arts. At the Studio Museum in Harlem, Minter was featured in the 2014 exhibition When the Stars Begin to Fall. His work entered the Studio Museum collection in 2020.
Exhibitions and Events
Joe Minter
(b. 1943)Throughout his practice, Joe Minter recovers and reassembles found and discarded materials into works of art, an extension of his work as a cultural historian.
Biography
Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Minter vividly remembers the Jim Crow era and the civil rights movement. After serving in the military for two years, Minter worked in metal construction for over a decade, making a range of products and machinery. He left the construction industry for health reasons but continued to craft with metal by making sculptural works.
Minter has since pursued a self-taught practice, creating works that honor and commemorate Black American history. In 1989, Minter began making African Village in America, a site-specific installation located at his home in Titusville, Alabama. Minter’s village includes an extensive assembly of signs, found metal objects, and assemblage works that chart both local and global events of the past and present, with particular attention paid to those that involve or have affected Black Americans. Minter has also painted sporadically since the 1960s, a practice he has pursued consistently since 2021. Minter’s vibrant paintings are didactic and expansive in subject matter, ranging from nature scenes to images that recall the collective trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Minter has participated in exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Royal Academy of Art, London, among others. His work was also included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. In 2024, he was one of four Artist Choice grantees from the Ruth Foundation for the Arts. At the Studio Museum in Harlem, Minter was featured in the 2014 exhibition When the Stars Begin to Fall. His work entered the Studio Museum collection in 2020.
Exhibitions and Events