This diverse group of six artists will be in residence at Smack Mellon from September 1, 2021 through August 15, 2022, 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 happen twice annually. The studios are located on the lower level of our building at 92 Plymouth Street in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. The Studio Program launched in 2000 in response to the crisis 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 2021-2022 Studio Artists were: Ylinka Barotto, Associate Curator at the Moody Center for the Arts, Ysabel Pinyol Blasi, Executive Director and Curator, Monira Foundation and Nora R. Lawrence, Senior Curator, Storm King Arts Center.
Preliminary panelists were former Smack Mellon Studio or Exhibition artists: Mike Crane, Felli Maynard, Vandana Jain, Cecile Chong, Chantal Feitosa, and Jia Sung.
Panelist Bios:
Ylinka Barotto
Ylinka Barotto is the Associate Curator at the Moody Center for the Arts and is responsible for developing, organizing and executing visual art exhibitions that support the Moody’s mission of fostering interdisciplinary conversation. Barotto is also involved in the expansion of Rice Public Art through commissions of site-specific work and is responsible for conceptualizing and coordinating the Platform and Off the Wall series. Before joining the Moody, Barotto served as Assistant Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum where she worked on major modern and postwar retrospectives and contemporary exhibitions. She contributed to shape the Guggenheim’s permanent collection through acquisitions of emerging artists through the Young Collectors Council. In addition, for the Guggenheim Public Program she has hosted and moderated conversations between contemporary artists, activists, and journalists on topic such as feminism, activism, identity, and representation. Barotto received an MA in curatorial studies at Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, Italy.
Ysabel Pinyol Blasi, Executive Director and Curator, Monira Foundation
Prior to joining the Monira Foundation, Ysabel served as the curatorial director at Mana Contemporary (Miami, Jersey City, and Chicago) and was a co-founder of Mana Residencies. Originally from Barcelona, she earned a Master of Architecture from Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona in 2006. Blasi began collecting art more than twenty years ago and from 2007 to 2011 directed a gallery in Barcelona that represented international emerging artists. Her publications include The Bull and the Donkey (Barcelona, Spain: Galeria Ysabel Pinyol, 2008); Trivium, (Miami, FL: Mana Wynwood, 2016); and “Alt-Art Spaces and the Question of Identity Refusal,” Brooklyn Rail, 2017. Ysabel Pinyol Blasi continues to curate diverse and ground breaking exhibitions through the Monira Foundation as Chief Curator.
Nora R. Lawrence
As senior curator at the Storm King Art Center, Nora Lawrence organizes and co-organizes exhibitions for Storm King, including Indicators: Artists on Climate Change (2018), among the first major museum exhibitions about climate change. Since joining the Art Center in 2011, Lawrence founded a yearly exhibition program devoted to emerging and mid-career artists (Outlooks), and created a partnership between Storm King and Shandaken Projects that established Storm King’s first-ever artist residency. Prior to joining Storm King, Lawrence worked in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, where she worked on a number of exhibitions, including Ernesto Neto: Navedenga (2010), which she co-curated; Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today (2008); and Focus: Picasso Sculpture (2008) among others. She has also worked at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City. Lawrence is on the Advisory Council for the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, a 2019-20 Visiting Critic in the MFA program at Columbia University, and has taught courses at MoMA, the School of Visual Arts, and the University of Southern California. She holds a BA from Pomona College, an MA from the University of Southern California, and an M.Phil. from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
2021-22 Studio Visitors:
Ambika Trasi, Independent Curator and Artist
Jeanette Bischops, Curatorial Fellow, New Museum
Rebecca P. Jampol, Curator & Co-Director, Project for Empty Space
Eileen Jeng Lynch, Curator of Visual Arts, Wave Hill
Carla Shen, Artsy Collector
Yelena Keller, Curatorial Assistant, Studio Museum
Vivian Chui, Curator, Pioneer Works
Chela Mitchell, Owner, Chela Mitchell Gallery
Kelly Long, Curatorial Assistant, Whitney Museum
Danny Báez, Independent Curator
Mia Matthais, Curatorial Assistant, Whitney Museum
Nat Trotman, Curator of Performance & Media, Guggenheim
Alex Allenchey, Associate Director, Chart Gallery
Christopher Aque, Exhibitions & Programs Manager, Sculpture Center
Etienne Frossard, Smack Mellon Photographer
Stella Cilman, Curatorial Assistant, Artist Space
Jenny Gerow, Curator of Contemporary Art, BRIC Arts Media
Carmen Hermo, Associate Curator, Elizabeth E Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum
Prerana Reddy, Artist & Community Fellow, Recess
Camila Palomino, Curator at Vera List Center
Re’al Christian, Curator at Vera List Center
Gee Wesley, Curatorial Assistant, Dept of Media and Performance, MoMA
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, the National Endowment for the Arts, and with generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of The New York Community Trust, 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, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Wolf Kahn Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Robert Lehman Foundation, The Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation, and an Anonymous Donor.
In-kind donations are provided by 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.
