This diverse group of six artists will be in residence at Smack Mellon from September 1, 2020 through August 15, 2021, where they will be given the opportunity to create new work, develop existing work, establish relationships with arts professionals, and connect with their peers in the arts community—all with the financial, technical and administrative support of Smack Mellon. Artists have access to a private studio space and three shared common areas: a digital production lab, a fabrication shop, and a kitchen.
The public is invited into the studios to meet the artists during Open Studio events, which typically take place in April and September. The studios are located on the lower level of our building at 92 Plymouth Street in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. Pending the accessibility of the studios due to COVID-19, Artist talks and audience Q&A may be held over Zoom in lieu of in-person Open Studios. Check our homepage (www.smackmellon.org) for updates about these events. The Studio Program launched in 2000 in response to the crisis in availability of affordable workspace for artists living and working in New York City. Since then, the challenge to find affordable workspace has only worsened making our program more needed than ever.
Each year, Smack Mellon convenes a panel of arts professionals to select the artists from approximately 600 applicants. The panelists who selected the 2020-2021 Studio Artists were: Vivian Chui, Associate Curator, Pioneer Works; Rosario Güiraldes, Assistant Curator & Open Sessions Co-Director, The Drawing Center; Legacy Russell, Associate Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Preliminary panelists were former Smack Mellon Studio or Exhibition artists: Katie Bell, Janet Biggs, Jennifer Dalton, Beatrice Glow, Jennifer McCoy, Ronny Quevedo.
Panelist Bios:
Legacy Russell is the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Her academic, curatorial, and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. Russell’s written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art and a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellowship. Her first book, Glitch Feminism, is forthcoming from Verso Books in Fall 2020. Russell earned a dual-major B.A. from Macalester College in art history & studio art and English & creative writing, and an MRes in art history from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Rosario Güiraldes is Assistant Curator and Co-Director of the Open Sessions artist program at The Drawing Center. She has organized curatorial projects and public programs at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA); University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC), Mexico City; Hessel Museum, Judd Foundation, International Studio & Curatorial Program, Consulate General of Argentina, all New York; Fundación Proa, and Peña, both Buenos Aires. Her most recent project Forensic Architecture: Towards an Investigative Aesthetics was presented in different versions at the MACBA (2017), and at MUAC (2017-2018). Güiraldes has edited numerous publications, such as Forensic Architecture: Hacia una estética investigativa; Staging; Pioneer Works Journal; The Present is the Form of All Life: The Time Capsules of Ant Farm and LST; aCCseSsions; Compost; and Correspondencia. At Fundacion Proa, she also organized Forensis (2015) with Anselm Franke and Eyal Weizman. Güiraldes earned a B.Arch from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and an MA in curatorial studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Vivian Chui is the Associate Curator at Pioneer Works (since 2017), where she curated Sally Saul: Blue Hills, Yellow Tree (2019) and Maia Cruz Palileo: Meandering Curves of a Creek (2018) and helped organize exhibitions such as Jacolby Satterwhite: You’re at home (2019) and Anthony McCall: Solid Light Works (2018), among many others. She has contributed writing to Cultured, GARAGE, Ocula Magazine, and Art Papers. Chui earned an MA in Modern Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies from Columbia University.
The Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York City Council Member Lincoln Restler, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and with generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Jerome Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Inc., Select Equity Group Foundation, and Smack Mellon’s Members.
Smack Mellon programs are also made possible with generous support from the Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Wolf Kahn Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Robert Lehman Foundation, The Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation, and the Buckholz/Fontaine Fund.
In-kind donations and services are provided by Team, Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Department of Education and Sage and Coombe Architects.
Space for Smack Mellon’s programs is generously provided by the Walentas family and Two Trees Management.
