Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Michael E. Smith.
To make his sculptures, Smith extracts recognizable objects from the constant cycle of consumption and production that drives our modern world. Materials including clothing, plastics, machinery, as well those derived from the natural world, are stripped of their intended purpose, and reassembled to create new, sculptural forms, highlighting that while these are often discarded, they never fully disappear. Organized through a series of binaries, such as natural versus the artificial, the human versus the technological, or life versus death, Smith seeks to coax both the individual histories of his objects, as well as the larger, often invisible systems they inhabit. The emotional tenor of his sculptures is furthered by alterations made to the exhibition space itself, whether it be through ambient means (the dimming or removal of lights), the addition of sound, or interventions to pathways and thresholds. Paring down his installations to an extreme, Smith invites emptiness to shape his works as well, and the uneasy tension it brings with it, from order and harmony, to disarray and discord.
Michael E. Smith lives and works in Providence, RI. His work is currently the subject of an exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK, on view through June 18. Smith’s work was additionally included in Quiet as it’s Kept, the 2022 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Past solo exhibitions include Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, 2021, secession, Vienna, 2020, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2018, MoMA PS1, New York, 2017, 500 Capp Street, San Francisco, 2017, S.M.A.K., Ghent, 2017, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, 2015, De Appel, Amsterdam, 2015, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, 2015, The Power Station, Dallas, 2014, and La Triennale di Milano, Milan, 2014, among others. Additionally, Michael E. Smith participated in May You Live in Interesting Times, 58th edition of the Venice Biennale, Venice, 2019, and the 2012 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Smith’s work is held in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany, MCA Chicago, Museum National de Monaco, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, SMAK, Ghent, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
