Rachel Vera Steinberg, Curator & Director of Exhibitions, with Curatorial Intern Elle Gallen

On the occasion of the organization’s 30th Anniversary, Smack Mellon presents a group exhibition reflecting on our work over the past three decades. Gathering new and old works by program alumni, former/current employees, artists who are new to the program and exemplary of our mission, alongside archival material, the exhibition explores the idea of “work” as a foundational throughline of Smack Mellon’s operations. Founded in 1995 by artist Andrea Reynosa and musician Kevin Vertrees, Smack Mellon has consistently held artistic development, production, and experimentation as primary. As such, this exhibition grew from an introspective gaze, asking: what does it mean to make and maintain space for artists to create their work?

What we bring together is an examination of various permutations of labor through their material traces: bodily, robotic, artistic, domestic, transactional, and political. These forms of labor extend from the artworks on view through the ethos of the organization to uncover the often invisible labor of making, world-building, and community-building, requiring time spent and dedication delivered. As such, this exhibition focuses on the specificity of Smack Mellon’s particular style of support for artists making their work–hands-on and always evolving. In and of itself, this operative modality has required immense dedication through the combined efforts of artists, staff, board members, volunteers, supporters, and audiences, many of whom are also artists.

Smack Mellon is the labor of a thriving ecosystem. It is the blood, sweat, and tears of those who actively and consistently put artists first, because they (we) believe that creating art is necessary to feel alive, to move forward, to respond to the world at large, and to imagine what lies beyond the status quo. As an exhibition, this is a thoroughly unscientific core sample of Smack Mellon’s activities, but acts as a synecdoche in an attempt to encompass the past and map a trajectory into the future. Through this exhibition we recommit to our ethos, now thirty years strong.

The exhibition features artists: The Barnstormers, Itziar Barrio, Sonya Blesofsky, Patty Chang, Camel Collective (Anthony Graves and Carla Herrera-Prats), Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson, Kyoung Eun Kang, Moko Fukuyama, Javier Maria, Ash Moniz, Pat Oleszko, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Lucia Reissig, Ward Shelley, and Asia Stewart. In addition to the works on view, Smack Mellon will present a series of public programs throughout the run of the exhibition, including performances by exhibiting artists Kyoung Eun Kang and Asia Stewart, among others to be announced in the coming weeks.

How We Work: Smack Mellon at 30 is curated by Rachel Vera Steinberg, Curator & Director of Exhibitions, with the assistance of Curatorial Intern Elle Gallen.