An (exterior) interior earth metal sculpture.
xyz cubic yards of plastic, unknown chemicals, and lithium-ion batteries
24 square feet of rooftop space
⊹0⊹ inch depth of material
Total weight of sculpture: xyz lbs.
October 29, 2025–ongoing
BRING OUT YR DEAD…VAPES !!!
S M I L E R S hereby declares its first permanent, site-specific project:
The New York Vape Room. All are invited to participate in its establishment; any and many vape varieties/flavors are encouraged. Batteries are now included.
Friday, August 22nd:
V A P E T Y D E P O S I T b o x
was installed in front of 431 E 6TH ST to receive contributions twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.
Upcycle your collection/hoard with us and your precious earth metals will be given eternal life as a neighborly nod to the Important: version.
Walter De Maria’s studio was located at the former Con Edison substation at 421 E 6TH ST from 1980–2013.
Join us as we ride the vaperwave into art history❗
Photography will probably be permitted...
The New York Vape Room is an expression of cultural churn. Effectively lingering in concept development, it is a meditation on advertising and content creation—its inspiration and (temporarily) borrowed significance from a former neighbor and East Villager, Walter De Maria, is a statement on permanence and the privilege that is often key in attaining it. In the shadow of a towering monument to the elite, the vape room upholds an essential contradiction in the arts: establishment is the enemy while also the goal. 🎯
Questionably reverent and admittedly advantaged, this project is all the more poised to undermine power—specifically as commentary on the mythic maleness of the Land Art movement of the sixties and seventies. A friend and enabler, New York minimalism betrays itself by continuing to take up space. Postmodernist and contemporary female artists—Alice Adams, Athena Tacha, Mary Miss, Ana Mendieta (to name a few)—who labored tirelessly to resist neat categorization and in relative obscurity to their enormously celebrated male peers have lately been reexamined by institutions and commercial spaces. This overdue acknowledgement is in part owed to the rigor of female curators, critics, and gallerists such as Lucy Lippard and Pat Hearn, who advocated for, showcased, and wrote about these artists and experimental voices then, allowing for their impact and visibility to be amplified now.
INXS, a sculpture is readily made of indulgent Gen Y+Z garbage, digital+actual. Look out for printed posters [and discarded vapes] around the city that favor fruity packaging and crudely riff on the visual language of classic cigarette ads. Virality is fleeting and can be insincere; social media engagement as a tool will be secondary. Artificially wrought, shallow perhaps—the idea strengthens over time in natural discourse, rising in tandem with the ⊹measured⊹ “depth” of the vape pit. The project re-employs extractive materials and is maximally modest in size. The New York Vape Room exists partially in the realm of the intellect, with its physical self incomplete—ever spoo/ling/fing/king ;)
Laura Tighe
October 17, 2025
[updated October 29, 2025]
T Y to Hallie Doane for fabrication support
LOVE to Betsy Johnson for the tip on Tacha ⊹₊⋆｡°✩
For discipline++++ Efraín López
Wednesday, October 29th:
The New York Vape Room has soft-launched ◥◥◥ and will endure in situ as a living sculpture alongside all S M I L E R S programming hereafter—related or not. Pending strategies for sourcing additional contributions are yet to be deployed. This tXt will be updated to chronicle success+failure until the project reaches its currently indeterminate (load) capacity.
Saturday, November 1st:
The project was named in an art world gossip column: Wet Paint. Totally on brand—thanks to Annie Armstrong for kindly outing this soft launch into a hard one❗