Smack Mellon

Join us next Saturday, July 27 for “Alter,” a reimagined death cafe curated by Nancy Huang (educator, death doula, and poet) and Anastasia Corrine. Join us to talk about fears, dreams, and thoughts about death and mortality in a non judgemental setting. Centering Q***r & Trans Black and brown communities, we embrace lineal wisdom, herbalism, and rest as methods for exploring death positivity.

Presented in conjunction with “Spiral Time,” our summer group exhibition exploring radical ecologies of resistance that challenge the temporal pressures imposed by capitalism.

On view as part of “Spiral Time,” Ruth Jeyaveeran’s large and buoyant hanging forms resemble branches, fossils, tools, ornaments, and vessels.

Suspended yet anchored to the ground with rocks, “In Every Part of Every Living Thing” draws on objects once buried and forgotten, recovered through the dedicated ritual of felting, a process that generates surprises through the wool’s unpredictability and reveals latent truths about interspecies belonging.

On view through Sunday, Aug 4!

Images: Installation view of Spiral Time (2024), curated by Alex Santana at Smack Mellon. Image courtesy of Smack Mellon. Photo by Etienne Frossard.

On this very , we’re featuring the work of Sophia-Yemisi Adeyemo who paints portraits of individuals from archival photographs into imagined landscapes. She is not rewriting history, but rather, using a stolen past as the raw material to construct a vision of a liberated existence.

Sophia-Yemisi Adeyemo has been an Artist-in-Residence at BRIC Arts Media, Lazuli Residency, and the New York Academy of Art. Her work has been exhibited at BRIC House, C1760 Gallery, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Arnot Art Museum, The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, and the Muskegon Museum of Art. She received her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and is currently an MFA Candidate at The Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
yemisi.adeyemo

Images:

Sophia-Yemisi Adeyemo, Rose of Sharon, 2021, Acrylic, watercolor, paper, 32 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches.
Sophia-Yemisi Adeyemo, Visions of Iron (Aloe Vera for your Wounds), 2021, Acrylic, watercolor, paper, 22 1/2 x 30 inches.
Sophia-Yemisi Adeyemo, Springtime Loveletter, 2021, Acrylic, watercolor, paper, 23 x 15.5 inches.

Today from 5-7PM, join us for a film screening and artist Q+A as part of our group show “Spiral Time” which explores radical ecologies of resistance that challenge the temporal pressures imposed by capitalism.

Film screening featuring:

Vick Quezada, Seed Unseed, 2021

Located in the Southwestern United States is the city of El Paso, Texas (1659). Throughout the city and its surrounding area lays a mission route that connects three historic Catholic churches: Ysleta Del Sur Mission (1682), San Elizario Mission (1877), and the Socorro Mission (1682). On November 28-29, 2019 Quezada returned to their hometown of El Paso to walk the 9-mile pilgrimage. Adorned in corn leaves and chain link fence, and operating a manual corn seeder named Ozomatlli, they walked from mission to mission, a path which comes just shy of tracing the United States-Mexico border.

Misra Walker, Spectre, 2022-2024

[Content Warning: Flash]
In this episode, we explore Peru. We traverse the haunted Metropolitan Museum of Art, cataloging its stolen artifacts from South America, then travel through time to witness my family’s memory, archive, and ghost stories from the infamous site of Marcahuasi, known for its UFO sightings. How can ghosts reveal the past and protect us in the present and future?

Ujamaa Earthseed Collective, the world is a womb, Part 2: Reciprocity (work in progress, 2024)
Between the Baychester and Eastchester-Dyre Ave train stops in the Northeast Bronx, community members retreat to the Siwanoy Forest to find belonging and abundance. Despite development and deforestation affecting the borough, this community maintains a reality-altering, reciprocal relationship to the natural world, allowing them to slow down and find quiet. Reciprocity is an experimental audiovisual archive honoring the Siwanoy Forest and those who have cared for it, featuring interviews with long-term Bronx residents and environmental stewards, Renee Patterson and Anieto Henville.

Image: Still from Vick Quezada, Seed Unseed, 2021. Performance video, 10:01

In our current exhibition “Spiral Time,” participants are immersed in dre jácome’s intimate multimedia installation “earthseed” and prompted to stand in solidarity with Palestine while being nurtured by land/body stories shared by jácome and her longtime collaborator Ximena Violante. In this environment, the protective mechanism of the pinecone provides a physical structure but also a metaphor for embracing systems of care and unity.
tijerazo

Curated by Alex Santana, and on view through August 4! Open Wed-Sun, 12-6PM.

dre jácome, “earthseed,” 2024
Plywood, resin, laptop, speakers, bamboo, LED lights, capacitive sensor, pantyhose, clothing wire 96 x 96 x 102 in

Image courtesy of Smack Mellon. Photo by Etienne Frossard

Check out Spiral Time in with a feature on Zainab Aliyu’s installation Lenticular temporalities: 2949596/ ∞ (2024)!

Spiral Time is open Wed-Sun, 12-6PM. Please note that our galleries are closed for the holiday on Thursday, July 4.

Today for we’re highlighting the work of Freya Powell! 🔥

Centering the voice as a medium, Powell explores the connections between language, memory, myth, and history. Drawing inspiration from the genre of tragedy, her projects engage with concepts of grievability, complicity, and ambiguous loss.

Powell has performed, screened, and exhibited her work nationally and internationally at institutions including, MoMA PS1, Videotage, Art in General, Queens Museum, Arts Santa Monica, and Socrates Sculpture Park l, among others. She has received grants from NYSCA, Queens Council on the Arts, and NYFA. Powell holds an MFA from Hunter College, BA from Bard College, and is Assistant Professor of Photography at Parsons, the New School.

Images:

Freya Powell, Only Remains Remain, 2021, 15 person performance, 53:00. Photography by Walter Wlodarczyk, courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Freya Powell, Only Remains Remain, 2021, 15 person performance, 53:00. Photography by Walter Wlodarczyk, courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Freya Powell, Only Remains Remain, 2021, 15 person performance, 53:00. Photography by Walter Wlodarczyk, courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Save the date of Wed. July 10 for a video screening and artist Q+A presented as part of our summer group exhibition “Spiral Time.”

Vick Quezada, Seed Unseed, 2021


Misra Walker, Spectre, 2022-2024


Ujamaa Earthseed Collective, the world is a womb, Part 2: Reciprocity (work in progress, 2024)

Thanks to all who joined us for the opening reception of Spiral Time curated by Alex Santana! 🌀

Now open through August 4
Wed-Sun, 12-6PM

🌀 Opening this Saturday! 🌀

From 6-8PM, join us for the opening reception of Spiral Time, a summer group exhibition exploring radical ecologies of resistance that challenge the temporal pressures imposed by capitalism.

On view through July 20, don’t miss Pat Oleszko
“Pat’s Imperfect Present Tense” at !

Pat Oleszko has performed as MC at our annual Gravity Racers Benefit. This exhibition re-surfaces pivotal performances, inflatables, and videos from 1972 to the current day, foregrounding the artist’s life-long endeavor towards absurdity.

Working in disregard for any and all divide, Oleszko’s practice bleeds into everything— this survey of works pulls largely from decades-deep hordes of worn-sculptures from the artist’s extensive oeuvre. These costumes appear as the attractors in performances as well as characters in her video works, further seducing the viewer through a rigorous and developed language of pun populating Pat’s planet.

Oleszko (b. 1947, Detroit) received her BFA from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Since the early 1970s, she has staged exhibitions and performances at institutions such as Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Kitchen (New York), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Performance Space 122 (New York), Museum of Contemporary Craft (now Museum of Art and Design, New York), P.S. 1 (Queens), Lincoln Center (New York), Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Civitella Ranieri (Umbertide, Italy), Neuberger Museum (Purchase), Rauschenberg Foundation (Captiva), National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington D.C.), and King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut (New York); amongst others. She was the recipient of the Rome Prize in 1998, and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1990. Oleszko lives in works in New York City.

Image: Pat Oleszko, Udder Delight, 1989, nylon, blower, 82 x 48 x 74 in (208.5 x 122 x 188 cm)

We are delighted to announce the opening of “Spiral Time,” the 2024 Emerging Artist Summer Group Exhibition guest curated by Alex Santana.

Opening Sat. June 22, 6-8PM, “Spiral Time” explores radical ecologies of resistance that challenge the temporal pressures imposed by capitalism. Decentering speed and efficiency, the artists included in the exhibition borrow from slow, careful, and intentional practices like seedkeeping, intergenerational storytelling, and synchronic experimentation.

PRESS PREVIEW
Sat. June 22, 5-6PM

OPENING RECEPTION
Sat. June 22, 6-8PM

ARTISTS
Zainab Aliyu
Cali M. Banks
Rhea Barve
Cinthya Santos Briones
Anastasia Corrine
Christian Amaya Garcia
dre jácome
Ruth Jeyaveeran
Natalia Mejía Murillo
G. Rosa-Rey .rosa.rey

Image: Cali M. Banks, West Brighton Ave, Southside, 2023. Polaroid emulsion lift & transfer onto leaf skeleton & watercolor paper with hand-sewn beadwork details, 12 x 12 inches (framed).

For today’s , we’re highlighting the work of Tommy Kha ()!

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Kha received his Photography MFA from Yale University. He is the recipient of the Next Step Award, the CPW Vision Award, Foam Talent, Creator Labs Photo’ Fund, NYSCA/NYFA Photography Fellow. His work has been published in NY Times, the New Yorker, and Foam. He has had solo shows at Higher Pictures Generation, Baxter St. at the Camera Club of New York, and Blue Sky Gallery, and presented at Paris Photo curated by Holly Roussell. He joined Higher Pictures Generation in 2022. His first major publication, Half, Full, Quarter was published by Aperture in February 2023.

Images:

Tommy Kha, Constellations (VIII), Prop Planet, Miami, 2017/2022. Pigment print, 40 x 50 inches.

Tommy Kha, May (Mirror, Mother, Mirror), Whitehaven, Memphis, 2019. Pigment print, 24 x 30 inches.

Tommy Kha, Assembly II, Whitehaven, Memphis/Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 2017–’19. Pigment print, 13 5/8 x 17 inches.

Now on view through Sunday, May 26, Art Ready: “Selected Works from the Artist Mentorship Program 2024” presents work by students in Art Ready, our free arts mentorship program for NYC public high school students.

Representing 17 high schools across New York City, this year’s student artists include: A Bacchus, Pamela Bolanos, Chelsea Capellan, Danellis Carvajal, Arabella Casper, Camille Charlet, Valeria Chernobaeva, Jaliesa Davis, Amy Dopwell, Lois Fosu, Evy (Boba) Hernandez, Janella Joseph, Min Jung, Taran Kilgour, Asa Kurtz, Eleonora Lazarieva, Mia Lew, Sandy Lin, Anastasiya Maizik, Dionne Phillip, July Rodriguez, Gabriella Sepulveda, Alden Shultis, Charlie Vazquez, and Daria Viatkina.

The students were mentored by professional artists including:
Craig Anthony Miller (CAM), Rebecca Shapass, Megan Mi-Ai Lee, Phillip Shung, Max St Pierre (Sage and Coombe Architects), Hua Chen and Derek Koch (leam), and Isabella Wachsler (lucky risograph).

miai

For today’s we’re spotlighting the work of Daniel Ramos ()! 🔥

Ramos is an American artist based in New York City. Ramos received a BFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago. Ramos is a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for Photography and was a 2021-22 fellow at NXTHVN; Artist-In-Residence at Light Work (2021); and Artist-In-Residence at ISCP under the sponsorship of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2020-2021).

Solo exhibitions include Fotoforum, Santa Fe, NM; Artpace, San Antonio, TX; McHenry County College, Crystal Lake, IL; and The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University where his work is held in permanent collection. His most recent group show, Undercurrents, was at Sean Kelly Gallery, NY. Most recently, he was a panelist at Alianza’s Latine Artist Panel at Columbia University, NY and has been a visiting artist lecturer at Yale University and the Fashion Institute of Technology among others. He was the recipient of the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor prize in 2018.

Images:
1. Daniel Ramos, Pilo in Leaves, 2016. Lampazos De Naranjo, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Archival inkjet photograph from The Land of Illustrious Men series.

2. Daniel Ramos, Untitled, 2018. Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Archival inkjet photograph
from the Eres Muy Hermosa series.

3. Daniel Ramos, Querendon, 2018. Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Archival inkjet photograph from the Eres Muy Hermosa series.

We are thrilled to announce the six artists in the 2024-25 Artist Studio cohort! (from top, left to right):

Amina Ross
Angélica Maria Millán Lozano
Christian Amaya Garcia
Juan José Cielo
Sasha Fishman
Woomin Kim

These NYC-based emerging artists, representing a diverse array of practices, will move into their studios at Smack Mellon this September. For an eleven-month period, residents are granted a private studio, a stipend, and access to equipment with which to create work, establish relationships with arts professionals, and grow in community with their peers.

A panel of arts professionals selected this year’s cohort including Stamatina Gregory, Chief Curator at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art; Gabriela López Dena, Associate Curator of Public Practice at Public Art Fund; and Serubiri Moses, Independent Writer and Curator.

We ❤️ Art Ready! Opening next week, students from our Art Teady teen mentorship program will exhibit work created this year with the support of their artist mentors. Select works are on view May 22-26.

Art Ready is a free afterschool program for NYC public high school students that engages young people in a way no other arts education program does—by pairing students directly with successful working artists.

The students were mentored by artists working across disciplines including architecture, graphic design, painting, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, and film.

The 2023-24 Art Ready mentors are:
Craig Anthony Miller
Rebecca Shapass
Megan Mi-Ai Lee .miai
Phillip Shung
Max St Pierre, Sage & Coombe Hua Chen and Derek Koch, Team Isabella Wachsler, lucky riso

This 🔥 🔥 meet Elzie Williams!

Willliams is a New York based interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, collage, and installation whose work focuses on racial and social issues. He holds an MFA from Columbia University (‘22) and BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art (‘15). Williams has participated in group exhibitions at Phillips, New York, NY; Half Gallery, New York, NY; C-L-E-A-R-I-N-G, Los Angeles, CA; M23, New York, NY and Francois Gebaly, New York, NY among others.
williams

Image List

1) Elzie Willliams, Hit The Road, 2022, Magazines swatches of the color black with Black faces on the reverse, clear tape, thread, acrylic rod, metal , plastic bag, flagpole bracket , 20 x 40 inches.

2) Elzie Willliams, Rubberband Man, 2022, Compressed magazines, rubber band, spray paint, stickers, acrylic, matches, 42 x 21 x 25 inches.

3) Elzie Willliams, Quick Response (Portrait I), 2023, Found QR codes, clear tape, laminated paper, thread, brown tape, metal, mirror, 43 x 48 inches.

Part III: Smack Mellon Gravity Racers Benefit Party & Art Auction 2024

Part II: Smack Mellon Gravity Racers Benefit Party & Art Auction 2024

All photos by Denis Gutiérrez-Ogrinc

It’s day! To highlight the incredible arts organizations in our neighborhood, we’re featuring the Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ one-night-only, “conversational” concert at BAM, featuring Davóne Tines this Monday. 🎶 Details below!

➡️ Check out all the events happening in/around downtown Brooklyn this month as part of organized by the

AND SING!
Monday, May 6 at 7PM
BAM Strong Harvey Theater

Learn more and buy tickets at www.bychorus.org/andsing

Brooklyn Youth Chorus () partners with groundbreaking artists Davóne Tines and Arreon A. Harley-Emerson for a conversational concert that examines the things that make us unique - our voices, histories, and traditions - and how they converge to make choral music that moves us.

Davóne Tines, BAM’s Artist In Residence, invites creatives from on stage and off to the proverbial fireside to examine choral music of the Black Diaspora. These multi-hyphenated leaders, performers, conductors, singers, educators, curators, storytellers, and legacy-holders join 100+ singers from Brooklyn Youth Chorus for a joyful and insightful evening of musical commentary and connection.

Curated by Brooklyn Youth Chorus Artistic Advisor, Arreon A. Harley-Emerson, AND SING! is a musical sampling of a wide spectrum of periods, idioms, and genres. Audience and performers come together to ponder, honor, and sing - celebrating the many facets that create our collective humanity.

Learn more and buy tickets at www.bychorus.org/andsing

The gravity racers are rolling in! 🏎️🏎️🏎️

Next Saturday, May 4 join us to race these incredible artist-made pinewood derby cars at the Gravity Racers Benefit Party & Art Auction! 🏁

Bet on the races to win a limited-edition artist print, included with a ticket! 🖼️

Throughout the event, enjoy delicious food by the and an open bar with and cider! 🥟🍻

Saturday, May 4
Doors open 3:30PM, races at 4PM

TICKETS
🎟️ A $400 ticket admits two and guarantees one limited-edition artist print
🎟️ Ticket packages offer discounts on multiple tickets
🎟️ A $200 ticket provides entry to the races and party

LIMITED-EDITION ARTIST PRINTS
11” x 14” (paper)
Archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper
Signed edition of 10 + 2 AP

Print artists include: David Baskin (), Yuchen Chang (), Cecile Chong (), Michele Oka Doner (), Madjeen Isaac (), Fatemeh Kazemi, LoVid (), Tammy Nguyen (), Simonette Quamina (), Ward Shelley (), Tariku Shiferaw (), Eve Sussman, Summer Wheat (), Anne Wu (), Dan Zeller

PARTY DETAILS
🔥 MC: Pat Oleszko
📣 Race Announcers: +
💃Dress Code: Crash-test your fanciest Racing Fits!

SPONSORS









Funds raised at the Gravity Racers Benefit support Smack Mellon’s mission to serve a diverse group of emerging, under-recognized, mid-career, and women artists through our exhibition, Artist Studio residency, and Art Ready teen mentorship programs.

In just TWO WEEKS, we‘ll race handmade pinewood derby cars down our incredible 35-foot track at the Gravity Racers Benefit Party & Art Auction! 🏁

Join us for the races, and bet to win a limited edition artist print, included with a ticket! 🖼️

Saturday, May 4
Doors open 3:30PM, races at 4PM

TICKETS
🎟️ A $400 ticket admits two and guarantees one limited-edition artist print
🎟️ Ticket packages offer discounts on multiple tickets
🎟️ A $200 ticket provides entry to the races and party

LIMITED-EDITION ARTIST PRINTS
11” x 14” (paper)
Archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper
Signed edition of 10 + 2 AP

Print artists include: David Baskin (), Yuchen Chang (), Cecile Chong (), Michele Oka Doner (), Madjeen Isaac (), Fatemeh Kazemi, LoVid (), Tammy Nguyen (), Simonette Quamina (), Ward Shelley (), Tariku Shiferaw (), Eve Sussman, Summer Wheat (), Anne Wu (), Dan Zeller

PARTY DETAILS
🔥 MC: Pat Oleszko
📣 Race Announcers: +
💃Dress Code: Crash-test your fanciest Racing Fits!
🥟 Food by the

BENEFIT COMMITTEE
Cecile Chong and Ryan Behroozi
Kate Gavriel, Two Trees Management
Christos and Faye Giannikos
Bridget Murphy and Kay D. Vorderwuelbecke
Jennifer Sage and Peter Coombe, Sage and Coombe Architects
Carol Salmanson
Ward Shelley
Alexandria Sica and Clara Inés Schuhmacher, DUMBO Improvement District

SPONSORS








Funds raised at the Gravity Racers Benefit support Smack Mellon’s mission to serve a diverse group of emerging, under-recognized, mid-career, and women artists through our exhibition, Artist Studio residency, and Art Ready teen mentorship programs.

Photos from the 2023 Gravity Racers Benefit Party & Art Auction. Photos by Saskia Kahn.

Race, bet, and win art with us on May 4! 🏎️

For this year’s Gravity Racers Benefit Party & Art Auction, we’ve invited select artists to collaborate to produce a limited print edition. 🖼️

A $400 ticket to the Benefit admits two and guarantees one limited-edition print, won by betting on the artist-made pinewood derby races. 🏁

Participating artists include: David Baskin, Yuchen Chang, Cecile Chong, Michele Oka Doner, Madjeen Isaac, Fatemeh Kazemi, LoVid, Tammy Nguyen, Simonette Quamina, Ward Shelley, Tariku Shiferaw, Eve Sussman, Summer Wheat, Anne Wu, Dan Zeller

11” x 14”, Archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper
Signed edition of 10 + 2 AP

Special thanks to our event sponsors:
Two Trees Management Co LLC
Team
Party Rental LTD
Grimm
Smart water
Gold peak

To purchase tickets and preview all prints, visit https://www.smackmellon.org/special-event/gravity-racers-benefit-party-2024/

Starting tomorrow! See you this weekend for DUMBO Open Studios!

Over 100 artists will open their studio doors to the public, including our six Studio Artists. One of our residents, Yuchen Chang () works in an interdisciplinary manner – writing as weaving, drawing as translation, teaching as hospitality, commerce as social experiment, and publishing as a dandelion spreading its seeds.

Yuchen was a recipient of Kahn Mason SIP Fellowship, Poetry Project Curatorial Fellowship, Huayu Youth Award Grand Jury Prize, Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation Grant and Lumiarts Fellowship. She has shown/performed her work at UCCA, Para Site, Taikwun Contemporary, Abrons Art Center, Artists Space, Assembly Room, etc. She was an artist in residence at NARS x Governors Island Satellite Residency, MASS MoCA, Museum of Art and Design, Textile Art Center, among others. Yuchen has written for publications including Randian, Heichi Magazine, Press and Fold, Art in Print and more.

Next week on Friday, April 26, 6:30PM, we’re thrilled to host the NYC launch of Victoria-Idongesit Undondian’s () monograph “How Can I Be Nobody” (Hirmer Publishers, 2024). The publication follows her eponymous 2022 exhibition at Smack Mellon, her first major solo exhibition in New York City.

The event will feature a screening of the Udondian’s newest film work—a continuation of this ongoing project—followed by a discussion between the artist and contributor Akil Kumarasamy, moderated by Rachel Vera Steinberg. Copies of the publication will be available for purchase at this event.

publishers

Image: Victoria-Idongesit Udondian, Ubom Iba, 2021, Metal, salvaged shipping pallets, used shoes, shoelaces, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of Smack Mellon. Photo by Etienne Frossard.

This weekend! Don’t miss DUMBO Open Studios with our Studio Artists and 100+ artists and arts orgs across the neighborhood this Sat + Sun, 1-6PM!

Studio Artist NY) is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and director. Their work honors queer/Caribbean identity through painting, sculpture, video, and performance. Their practice engages in found object, image transfer, and embroidery to enact and deconstruct the histories that constitute the present. They’ve directed films, music videos, and content for clients including SYRO, Deli Gallery, and various independent artists in New York. They have exhibited in galleries and non-profit spaces including Sargent’s Daughters, The Latinx Project at NYU, and Osseous Matter. They hold a BFA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design. They are a proud child of Afro-Dominican Immigrants, and were born and raised in New York City.





Image: Mujero in their studio at Smack Mellon. Photo by Etienne Frossard

It’s the final week to catch exhibitions by Sunny Leerasanthanah () and Mo Kong ()!

Exhibitions open today through Sunday, April 14, 12-6PM.

Don’t miss the happenings this weekend:
✨ Exhibitions on view, Sat + Sun, 12-6PM
✨ DUMBO Open Studios, Sat + Sun, 1-6PM
✨ Performance activation of Mo Kong, Swift Island Chain by artists Tianyi Sun () and Fiel Guhit, Sat. April 13, 6:30PM