ART CITIES:N.York-Josh Smith
Josh Smith works with painting, collage, sculpture, printmaking, and books. He first became known in the early 2000s for a series of canvases depicting his own name, a motif that allowed him to experiment freely with abstraction and figuration and the expressive possibilities of painting. His work has since given way to monochromes, gestural abstractions, and varied imagery that the artist has explored in series.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: David Zwirner Gallery Archive
Josh Smith continues to refine and expand on subjects and forms he has explored throughout his career, while also pushing his work into new terrain. The artist views the exhibition “Emo Jungle” as a significant opportunity to lay bare and test what his paintings can do within these new environments. “Emo Jungle” features an array of new paintings by the artist, including several new “Reaper” paintings, part of an ongoing series that depicts the figure of death. Rendered in lush ribbons and fields of color, the blank, empty faces and shapeless cloaks of the reapers serve as genderless, formless ciphers for the viewer. These “Reapers”, several constituting the largest Smith has produced, are made additionally distinct by the unique border treatments that Smith applies. The borders allude somewhat to the artist’s interest in early American decorative wall stencils, as well as the serrated and perforated edges of postage stamps, which signify a kind of self-contained meaning or value. Also debuting at the exhibition are paintings with entirely new motifs. One such group of works depicts a devil-like figure. Smith represents this character with a paintbrush, reaching to the corners and margins of the canvases, self-reflexively painting himself into the compositions. “Human Animals” are the focus of another series, which features primate-like creatures whose long limbs seem to stretch and determine the margins of the wide rectangular works. In another prolific new series, Smith explores the form of the turtle. In these paintings, the turtles’ shells morph into palettes—open-ended surfaces of endless possibility—where Smith mixes paint and experiments with facture and color. Smith chose the turtle specifically because, as he states, “it’s a boring thing that I love”. Turtles, like the artist’s other motifs, remove the imperative to find meaning or be confounded by the artwork. “The meaning perhaps arises in the making, leaving the viewer something purely for their visual engagement. They don’t have to be burdened with the meaning. What they’re left with is purely for them. The viewer can love it; they can hate it, but they’re not going to walk up to it and feel dumb.” Throughout the gallery, Smith has installed groups of ceramic traffic cones, a form that extends his formal interests into the sculptural realm.
Info: David Zwirner Gallery, 525 West 19th Street, New York, Duration: 25/4-15/6/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com
