Haley Mellin

Giovanni’s Room is pleased to present Conservation Imperatives, an installation by Haley Mellin. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles and consists of large-form wall drawing, painting, and text on the natural world. The exhibition’s title is abbreviated from Conservation Imperatives: Securing the Last Unprotected Terrestrial Sites Harboring Irreplaceable Biodiversity, a forthcoming paper that the artist co-authored and is set to be published in “Frontiers,” a community-run and open-access journal. The paper’s research involves where to protect the remaining global biodiversity from extinction and is featured page-by-page on the exhibition’s walls. Papers by Indigenous leaders and conservation biologists are available for viewers to take home.

Haley Mellin is an artist and conservationist. Mellin founded the initiative Art to Acres to support large-scale land protection. On behalf of the art community, the nonprofit has supported 33 million acres of new protected areas ranging from indigenous conserved areas to National Parks. To engage climate sustainability in art communities, Mellin supported the founding of Conserve, the MOCA Environmental Council, Art and Climate Action, Artists Commit, GCC Los Angeles and GCC New York. Starting in 2020, she initiated the first carbon emissions calculations in exhibitions for many museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, ICA Miami, documenta, and Kunstmuseum Bonn and received grants from the Teiger Foundation in 2022 and 2023 to continue this work.

Mellin currently focuses on observational painting in nature. The presentation of this series of work will be completed in two upcoming shows on ecology at Hauser & Wirth New York in January 2024 and at Dittrich & Schlechtriem Berlin in April 2024. Recent shows include The Journal Gallery, New York; Micki Meng and Parker Gallery, New York; Bischoff Projects, Germany; and Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Belgium. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Mellin has a PhD from the Steinhardt School in Visual Culture and Education and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. She is the 2023 Max Beckmann Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin and the Neue Nationalgalerie. She is mentored by South African/Italian artists and educators rosenclaire.