Join us for an intimate tour of the current exhibitions, led by exhibiting artists Luba Drozd, Leah Beeferman, and Mimi Park. First, Drozd will lead attendees through her solo exhibition, The Tenacity of a Fluid Trace, in which she employs elements of Smack Mellon’s unique architecture to produce various tonal frequencies for a complex visual and sonic installation. Attendees will have the opportunity to experience the exhibition from an embodied perspective, accompanied by a talk with the artist detailing her process, research, and use of materials. After the tour of the main gallery, artists Leah Beeferman and Mimi Park will lead a tour of their works in the back gallery, as part of the exhibition The Dissolution caus’d by Fire is in all Bodies, conceived to accompany Drozd’s installation. Similarly, their works engage with issues around perception, sonic resonance, and material transformation.
Image: Luba Drozd, The Tenacity of a Fluid Trace (in process installation detail). 2022.
Bios:
Leah Beeferman (b. 1982) works with video, digital image-making, text, and sound. She explores what emptiness and density — concepts important in quantum physics, which studies the smallest of scales — mean in landscapes on Earth, at a planetary scale. She has had solo exhibitions at Rawson Projects, New York; Arcade on Stadium, Utah; and Sorbus, Helsinki. Recent two-person or group exhibitions include Helsinki Art Museum, Finland; Fiskars Village Biennial, Finland; Sirius Arts Centre, Ireland; SOLU, Helsinki; The Anderson, Richmond.
Beeferman has participated in many residencies, including LMCC Workspace, New York; The Arctic Circle, Svalbard; Tiputini Biodiversity Research Station, Ecuador; ArsBioarctica, Finland; Mustarinda, Finland; Digital Painting Atelier, OCAD, Toronto; and Sirius, Ireland. Her work has been discussed in publications including BOMB, Objektiv, Temporary Art Review, Art in Print, Taupe Magazine, and ArtPulse. In 2016 she published an artist book, Triple Point, with Lodret Vandret, Copenhagen. She received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA from Brown University and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant to Finland (2016–17). Beeferman is now based in Providence, where she is an Assistant Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Luba Drozd (born Lviv, Ukraine, 1982) is an installation artist working with site-specific sound, 3D animation, and sculpture. She is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Digital and Electronic Arts, MacDowell Fellowship, Yaddo Residency, Millay Colony Residency, Pioneer Works Technology Residency, BRIC Media Arts Fellowship, New Work Grant from Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site. Her installations are commissioned and exhibited at such institutions as Dat Bolwerck, Zutphen, Netherlands, the Hessel Museum of Art, Hudson, NY; Knockdown Center, Queens, NY and Bronx Museum of Art. She will be a recipient of the 2023 Sound Art + Experimental Music residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. She received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Bard College.
Mimi Park (b. 1996, Seoul, South Korea) is an interdisciplinary artist who makes site specific installations of kinetic sculptures currently living and working in New York. Park primarily takes inspiration from life’s various cyclical patterns, which includes microcosms, soft circuitry and beyond in order to build diminutive yet fantastical new worlds. The sensorial realm occupies a central role in her work, as she is interested in the ways that neurodivergent forms of communication can often be misconstrued, something that she has experienced firsthand. She has exhibited internationally, most notably a recent solo show “Dawning: dust, seeds, Coplees” at Lubov Gallery in New York; “High Jump” at New Works Gallery, Chicago; and in the group exhibition “A Drawing: A Secret” at Projektraum145, Berlin. Her work has been featured in publications such as Art in America, The Art Newspaper, and Artforum.
This 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, and 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, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Robert Lehman Foundation, Select Equity Group Foundation, many individuals and Smack Mellon’s Members.
Smack Mellon’s programs are also made possible with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and with generous support from The Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of The New York Community Trust, Jerome Foundation, The Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Inc., and Exploring The Arts. In-kind donations are provided by Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Department of Education.
Space for Smack Mellon’s programs is generously provided by the Walentas family and Two Trees Management.
Smack Mellon would like to extend a special thanks to all of the individuals, foundations, and businesses who have contributed to the NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund.