Join artists Reade Bryan, Shayok Mukhopadhyay, and Tammy Nguyen for an in-person discussion about their current solo exhibitions at Smack Mellon. The artists will discuss the ideas, processes, and context behind their current bodies of work. This event will be in person, and we ask that all visitors please read our COVID Courtesy Code before attending. Face coverings are required for all visitors, even if you are vaccinated.
In the current exhibitions, spanning the entrance and two gallery spaces, use installation, sculpture, paintings, and prints, the artists each address the current politics, histories, and cultural imaginaries surrounding the state of climate change and global water issues. Reade Bryan’s painted and sculptural installations focus on regions that have been dramatically altered by man-made irrigation systems. The exhibition’s site of departure is the Aral Sea, which was an endorheic lake located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in central Asia. Through an immersive installation that contrasts two different types of vessels intended to carry water, Shayok Mukhopadhyay’s Waiting for Water is an effort to publicly reevaluate the vulnerability of technologically complex societies to the volatility of climate change. Tammy Nguyen’s exhibition Freehold is inspired by the artist’s research and writing about Forest City, a tax free, man-made island in Johor, Malaysia, located along the Singapore Strait and adjacent to the Strait of Malacca–-one of the busiest trade conduits in the world. The exhibition brings together three new bodies of work in addition to a flag that the artist has created to frame the exhibition.
Originally from Houston, TX, Reade Bryan earned a BFA from Parsons School of Design in 2006. He has been the recipient of the AIM program (2013), which culminated with the exhibition Bronx Calling organized by the Bronx Museum. His solo shows include REFLEX (2013) at Signal Gallery and Inhabited (2014) at Wave Hill.
Shayok Mukhopadhyay grew up in Kolkata, India and graduated from the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism program at the International Center of Photography in New York in 2012. His first solo show of photographs, Québec, took place at Katharine Mulherin Projects in Toronto in 2013. His installation, Back Home, was part of the 2017 Bronx Museum’s AIM Biennial exhibition. In 2019, he completed a six-month residency at Atelier Mondial, Basel; premiered his feature-length doc, Gautam & Buddha at the Transilvania International Film Festival; and had a solo show at DOCK, Basel titled Calcutta Corner. Shayok is a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow.
Tammy Nguyen is a multimedia artist whose work spans painting, drawing, printmaking, and publishing. Intersecting geopolitical realities with fiction, her practice addresses lesser-known histories through a blend of myth and visual narrative. She is the founder of Passenger Pigeon Press, an independent press that joins the work of scientists, journalists, creative writers, and artists to create politically nuanced and cross-disciplinary projects. Born in San Francisco, Nguyen received a BFA from Cooper Union in 2007. The year following, she received a Fulbright scholarship to study lacquer painting in Vietnam, where she remained and worked with a ceramics company for three years thereafter. Nguyen received an MFA from Yale in 2013 and was awarded the Van Lier Fellowship at Wave Hill in 2014. She has exhibited at the Rubin Museum, The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, the Bronx Museum, and Five Myles among others. Her work is included in the collections of Yale University, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, MIT Library, the Seattle Art Museum, the Walker Art Center Library, and the Museum of Modern Art Library. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at Wesleyan University and represented by Hesse Flatow in New York City.
Image: Tammy Nguyen, The Flag and its Meanings (detail), 2021. Digital print and letterpress on paper, dimensions variable.
These exhibitions are 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 Stephen Levin, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and with generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual 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.
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.
Space for Smack Mellon’s programs is generously provided by the Walentas family and Two Trees Management.
Waiting for Water was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.