Emily Mae Smith
PRESS KIT
forms float in saturated canvases, caught in
moments of joy or fear—narratives that stem from a longtime passion for
reading and writing. “These days I’ve been trying to tell a very specific
story, choosing to portray women in an everyday way without the
trappings of explicit sexuality or artifice,” Hahn says. “The figures are
allowed to just be and not perform to classical representations of nudity
and provocation.” Hahn has been painting figuratively since her undergrad
years at Cooper Union, but only recently gained wide acclaim, following a
solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery in New York. For her recent series “I
the Future and It Reminded Me of You,” she focused on pattern
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making; each painting, of one or two girls, was copiously dotted with tiny
flowers. “The repetition of the flower patterns was grueling to adhere to
and anxiety-making, but I knew I wanted to paint within that anxiety
because the content called for it.”
These 20 Female Artists Are Pushing Figurative Painting Forward, by Casey Lesser, Artsy, June
2016
Emily Mae Smith �Follow
B. 1979, AUSTIN, TEXAS. LIVES AND WORKS IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Emily Mae Smith, The Studio, Odalisque, 2016. Photo by Max Slaven. Courtesy of the artist and Mary
Mary, Glasgow.
4
ENTER SLIDESHOW
Packing her paintings with nods to Warhol, Lichtenstein, broomstick
people à la Disney’s Fantasia, or the late Victorian-era art magazine The
Studio, Smith adopts familiar characters and tropes to create glossy,
graphic paintings that convey a distinct pop aesthetic. Her work also offers
cheeky commentary on issues like gender, capitalism, and violence. “I have
always worked with images, signs, and representations,” Smith says. “I
dislike the notion of calling painting ‘figurative’ or ‘abstract,’ as the nature
of painting is both at all times. A lot of the bodies in my work have been
fictional, are often objects, or not even human.” In her recent solo
exhibition at Mary Mary in Glasgow, Smith presented her series of
recurring broomstick characters, who appear under different guises and
filters—rendered in Benday Dots, as Warhol’s Double Elvis (1963), or in a
sensual odalisque pose and psychedelic skin.
—Casey Lesser
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Emily Mae Smith, by Charlotte Jansen, Elephant Magazine, Issue 26, Spring 2016
I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T; L A U R E L G I T L E N , N E W Y O R K ; M A R Y M A R Y, G L A S G O W
E M I LY M A E
SMITH
Last year was a breakthrough
year for Brooklyn-based
E M I LY M A E S M I T H , with a solo
show at Laurel Gitlen that
was picked up by Jeffrey Deitch
for a subsequent show at Art Basel
Miami Beach, positioning her
as one of the painters defining
her generation. Text by
CHARLOTTE JANSEN.
Roy Lich
Joe Braina
nonical n
looking a
Mae Smi
us think:
question
puts in the
reference
answers it
her way in
tory with h
brooms a
How do yo
between ab
I see peop
tive’ to me
Besides re
I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T; L A U R E L G I T L E N , N E W Y O R K ; M A R Y M A R Y, G L A S G O W
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Roy Lichtenstein. René Magritte.
Joe Brainard.Walt Disney. Many canonical names come to mind when
looking at the paintings of Emily
Mae Smith. But which bit makes
us think: Emily Mae Smith? It’s a
question the young female painter
puts in the frame with her fastidious
references to modernism. And she
answers it in part, too, by muscling
her way into a heavily male art history with her androgynous alter-ego
brooms and piercing stiletto heel.
How do you see your work as sitting
between abstraction and figuration?
I see people using the term ‘figurative’ to mean a few different things.
Besides referring to an actual body
being depicted, the term is also
used to describe artwork that is
representational and/or pictorial.
I work with images, signs and representations. My paintings are selfreflexive; they are about the world
and they are also about the institution of painting itself. I dislike any
notion of dividing figurative and
abstract. Paintings are always both
things at all times.
How do you set about a new
painting?
The initial idea for the painting almost always comes fully formed as
an image in my mind. I draw a lot of
thumbnail sketches to retain that vision and work out the composition.
Sometimes I do more elaborate
renderings to expand on the idea.
The image is honed because I try to
eliminate anything that is not necessary. Sometimes I do some research on topics connected to the
painting idea and I look for additional source material images.
I have to plan a lot because there
are many technical issues with oil
painting that must be considered.
I draw the composition on the
painting following my sketches.
Then I start painting in sections
and layers. Some parts have to be
done before others; some colours
are going to determine how other
colours look. I spend a lot of time
mixing my specific colours. No
matter how much I plan there is still
a great-unknown part of making the
painting that only happens in the
moment of creating it. There are
inevitable revisions to the composition and plan.The mechanics of the
painting are part technical process,
part discovery.
A feminist stance or underlying
handling of gender politics has been
mentioned in reference to your works.
How important is this to you when
you go about making your work?
It is important to me. I have my
subjective and analytic perspective
that I create from, like any other
human in the world. I feel like a
feminist perspective is still sort of
SMITH 65
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alien to painting and therefore necessary to it. One never fully knows
what transmits; any discovery is
good. All I can really know is some
(not all) of what I put into it—there
is a certain amount that is mysterious to me as well.
When and how did you develop
motifs such as your sausagey broom
and the teeth that frame some of
your images?
Both of those started in 2014.They
were in my solo show at Junior
6 6 N E W E S TA B L I S H M E N T
Projects that year. The first broom
I put in a painting was a riff on the
broom character in The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice. It was a way for me
to paint an object, figure, female
and phallus all at the same time.
I thought it was funny and an ideal
vehicle. It doesn’t refer to any other
broom at this point; it’s my own
thing now. The ideas for my broom
figure have changed and expanded
since then; it has been moulded to
my painting needs.You can say more
difficult things with a character.The
broom is my little Tom Thumb,
traipsing through ‘Painting’, getting into trouble.
The mouth frame also started at
the same time. I was studying Art
Nouveau illustrations, and noticed
how a frame device was often used
to contextualize a narrative in those
designs. I came up with the mouth/
teeth with moustache frame as a way
to engender my paintings as ‘male’.
It was kind of a joke. But then, as
jokes go, there was a truth to it that
resonated. These motifs opened
doors and allowed me to paint ideas
that otherwise I could not get out.
You’ve got quite a few shows
happening in 2016.Would you mind
sharing a few of the concepts you’ll
be looking at in these shows?
Increasingly I am making closeup paintings of my broom’s face—
psychological existential portraits.
They embody a crisis of seeing and
being. My solo show at Mary Mary,
Glasgow, will be called Honest
Espionage.
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Previous pages, left
Waiting Room (detail)
2015
Oil on linen
121.9 x 94cm
Previous pages, right
The Mirror
2015
Oil on linen
116.8 x 137.2cm
Opposite
Over the Shoulder
2015
Oil on linen
96.5 x 76.2cm
Right
Big Exit
2015
Oil on linen
96.5 x 68.6cm
SMITH 67
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Emily Mae Smith, by Laura Phipps and Elisabeth Sherman, CURA #21, 2016
EMILY MAE SMITH
by Laura Phipps
and Elisabeth Sherman
While informed by the aesthetics of Art
Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts Movement’s celebration of the artisan, Emily
Mae Smith’s painting style is firmly contemporary, developed in a time when the
computer is the tool of the craftsperson.
Her paintings are populated by fantastical bodies occupying unbelievable landscapes in a style and finish that has
become ubiquitous in our digital space.
Despite this veneer of technological invention and perfection, however, Smith
fetishizes the handmade, carefully and
obsessively realizing her fantastical
worlds in oil paint, the most traditional of
mediums. She romanticizes the studio as
both a physical location where she labors at her paintings and a space where
origin tales are spun about artworks and
their creators.
Smith’s signature style – informed by
wide ranging influences such as Disney
animation, graphic design, decorative
arts and the Chicago Imagists – is clear
and direct, giving each element populating her compositions a communicative
power in its engagement with the viewer.
The complexity of her work comes, instead, from the myth-making that is central to the operation of her paintings.
While flawlessly constructed, her compositions are pared down to a few relatively
key elements. The use of three funda-
192
mental devices in each work – portrait,
still life, frame – affords Smith three opportunities to develop the characters and
devices that make up the mythology of
her universe. From the influence of Disney fairytales, and the power of those
often simple stories, she has developed
her own starring character, an anthropomorphized broom seemingly lifted directly from Fantasia. Rather than faceless,
genderless, and in a horde of thousands
of replicas, however, Smith’s broom is
often a singular figure, powerfully alone
and, while still somewhat androgynous,
definitively female. A stand-in for not only
Smith herself, but also for the idea of the
artist, the female, or the female artist, the
broom importantly acts as the protagonist in Smith’s scenes.
Using this broom-figure, Smith works
against the use of the female body as
decoration or progenitor, as is often the
case in the materials from which she
often draws her inspiration – the romanticized forms of the female body in Art
Nouveau or the innocently sexual characters of fairytales – but instead deploys
the female body as an individual agent.
Her neutered or transformed figures are
not meant for reproduction or idolation
but for action, be it violent or creative.
They turn their gaze directly out at the
viewer, unblinkingly staring us down
HOT!
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d
-
y
e
e
c-
HOT!
Scream, 2015 (opposite page) The Studio (Broom and Mushroom), 2015 (p. 193) All images Courtesy: the artist
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HOT
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Scream, 2015 (opposite page) The Studio (Broom and Mushroom), 2015 (p. 193) All images Courtesy: the artist
while they placidly engage in seemingly
banal, yet powerful activities. Like the
broom in The Studio (Seance) (2015),
who levitates cross legged while holding
a paintbrush and seems to be the master
of her universe, many of these avatars
manage to be violent, humorous, and
strong while doing almost nothing at all.
Beyond simply feminine agency, Smith
also challenges gendered framing and
the male gaze, endorsing the desire to
make both obsolete. Smith includes a
mustache in many of her paintings, hidden within painted frames, decorating the
faces of her otherwise female figures, or
as a floating still life element all on its
own. These mustaches often appear like
comedic flourishes, like a set of Groucho
Marx glasses. They imply masculinity, and
its dominance in the history of painting,
while at once overriding it and diminishing it to a punchline. While in Over the
Shoulder (2015) the mustache lords over
an aggressively open mouth that contains imagery of a stiletto heel injuring a
cartoonish tongue – the male aggression
containing overtly feminine dominance –
in Scream (2015) the mustache hangs
limply in the hand of the broom and is
erased from the painted frame – a sign
of the impotence of gendered readings.
to their own imaginings, taking only what
they desire from the world just outside
the walls. Mirages of drafty garrets in
Paris or airy lofts in Manhattan are persistent despite their being oft replaced by
the computer screen and coffee shop. Similarly, the romance of the handmade is
that the unique object speaks to the personality or culture of the individual that
produced it. This history, however false
and clichéd, is the softening light through
which Smith’s biting critiques are seen, a
little sugar helping the medicine go
down.
Beyond simply criticizing myths and fairytales for their casting of women as objects devoid of agency and action, Smith,
almost contradictorily, steals from fairytales and myths the romance central to
their power. For her, however, romance is
not the subject of her works but the milieu in which they are born. Even today,
the romance of “the studio” proves insidious. The pervasive image is of a magical place where visionary works are
created and the artist stokes and tends
HOT!
195
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Emily Mae Smith, studio visit, brooklyn, interview by MAURIZIO CATTELAN, portrait by ALEX
ANTITCH, Purple Magazine, S/S2016, issue 25
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Emily Mae Smith, by Barry Schwabsky, ArtForum, December 2015
Emily Mae Smith- Galleries Downtown, The New Yorker, October 26, 2015
Emily Mae Smith, by Natalie Musteate, ArtForum, 2015
Emily Mae Smith, by Nora Griffin, Art in America, November 2015
NOVEMBER 2015
NOVEMBER 2015
EXHIBITION REVIEWS
EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Emily Mae Smith:
Medusa, 2015, oil
Emily Mae Smith:
on linen, 38 by 27
Medusa, 2015, oil
inches; at Laurel
on linen, 38 by 27
Gitlen.
inches; at Laurel
Gitlen.
EMILY MAE SMITH
EMILY
Laurel
GitlenMAE SMITH
Laurel
Emily MaeGitlen
Smith’s first solo show at Laurel Gitlen, titled “Medusa,”
pumped
newSmith’s
blood into
the ongoing
that
many
contempoEmily Mae
first solo
show at conversation
Laurel Gitlen,
titled
“Medusa,”
rary artists
have
withinto
Popthe
art,ongoing
in particular
its glamour
populist
pumped
new
blood
conversation
thatfinish
manyand
contempoappeal.
Thehave
crisply
imagined
reference
classicfinish
animation,
art hisrary
artists
with
Pop art,paintings
in particular
its glamour
and populist
tory, mythology
andimagined
science-fiction
kitsch.
After classic
a 2014animation,
breakout show
at
appeal.
The crisply
paintings
reference
art hisJunior
Projects on
thescience-fiction
Lower East Side,
theAfter
young
Brooklyn-based
artistat
tory,
mythology
and
kitsch.
a 2014
breakout show
was
included
prominent
group
in New
York and Europe.
Junior
Projectsinon
the Lower
Eastexhibitions
Side, the young
Brooklyn-based
artist
Most of the
seven oil-on-linen
works (all 2015)
measure
48 by
37
was included
in prominent
group exhibitions
in New
York and
Europe.
inches,
an ideal
size. Smith compellingly
integrates
bold
Most
of theportrait
seven oil-on-linen
works (all 2015)
measure
48graphic
by 37
design an
with
theportrait
luminous
of oil paint. Virtuosic
technique
is
inches,
ideal
size.surfaces
Smith compellingly
integrates bold
graphic
tempered
bythe
an absurdist
activates
and personalizes
heriswork.
design
with
luminous humor
surfacesthat
of oil
paint. Virtuosic
technique
Cartoonish
figuringhumor
in many
ofactivates
the paintings
are recognizable
tempered bybrooms
an absurdist
that
and personalizes
herfrom
work.
the “Sorcerer’
s Apprentice”
s 1940are
film
Fantasia. The
Cartoonish
brooms
figuringsequence
in many of Disney’
the paintings
recognizable
from
broom,
in various
guises, becomes
a surrogate
for
the artist
well as The
a symthe
“Sorcerer’
s Apprentice”
sequence
of Disney’
s 1940
film as
Fantasia.
bol for the
enchanted
modality
of the
studio, afor
space
tremendous
broom,
in various
guises,
becomes
a surrogate
the that
artistexerts
as well
as a symforceforover
occupant’modality
s desires and
fears.
bol
theits
enchanted
of the
studio, a space that exerts tremendous
TheitsMirror,
simple
blackand
lines
on a cadmium yellow background
forceIn
over
occupant’
s desires
fears.
depict
group
of brooms
around
a giant red-framed
hand
InaThe
Mirror,
simplelounging
black lines
on a cadmium
yellow background
mirror aingroup
the middle
of the
canvas. Black
whitered-framed
dots in Lichtenstein’s
depict
of brooms
lounging
aroundand
a giant
hand
iconic benday
style compose
its reflective
surface.
Theincentrality
mirror
in the middle
of the canvas.
Black oval
and white
dots
Lichtenstein’s
of the mirror
the effectitsofreflective
looking oval
at imagery
Smith
and by
iconic
bendaycreates
style compose
surface.byThe
centrality
Lichtenstein
the same
time—a
doubling
is complexly
of the mirror at
creates
the effect
of looking
at that
imagery
by Smithpleasurable.
and by
References toatartthe
history
more doubling
subtly folded
other works.
The
Lichtenstein
same are
time—a
that into
is complexly
pleasurable.
puffy cloudstopartly
occluded
by redsubtly
bricksfolded
in Scream
References
art history
are more
intoevoke
other René
works.Magritte,
The
as
does
the filigree
moonsininScream
pink and
blue
in Viewpuffy
clouds
partly rendition
occluded of
by twin
red bricks
evoke
René
Magritte,
finder.
each
painting,
an anthropomorphic
handle
as
doesInthe
filigree
rendition
of twin moons inbroom
pink and
blueisindepicted
View- in
a stance
the title.
finder.
Inelucidating
each painting,
an anthropomorphic broom handle is depicted in
a stance elucidating the title.
Waiting Room presents a close-up of a broom, the bristles transformed
into long
hair.
Wearingof
glasses
withthe
numberless
clockWaiting
Roomblonde
presents
a close-up
a broom,
bristles transfaces, theinto
head
appears
tohair.
leanWearing
back against
a yellow-purple
gradient
formed
long
blonde
glasses
with numberless
clockresembling
venetian
blinds.
Theback
luscious
lipsaand
coifed hairgradient
identify
faces,
the head
appears
to lean
against
yellow-purple
the face as feminine.
The complexity
of the
the work’s
resembling
venetian blinds.
The luscious
lipsdescription
and coifedbelies
hair identify
visual
simplicity.
It can
becomplexity
digested quickly
an image,belies
but it the
canwork’s
also be
the
face
as feminine.
The
of the as
description
savored
for its indeterminate
psychology.
same
figure
the canvas
visual simplicity.
It can be digested
quicklyThe
as an
image,
butfills
it can
also be
in Still Life.
Here
one eyeglasspsychology.
reflects (orThe
projects?)
a glistening
cube
savored
for its
indeterminate
same figure
fills theicecanvas
andStill
a cherry
with one
a phallic
stem.
Conveyed
with theafetish
perfection
of
in
Life. Here
eyeglass
reflects
(or projects?)
glistening
ice cube
’80s aadvertising,
little scene
intoxicating
to behold
andperfection
carries anof
and
cherry withthe
a phallic
stem.isConveyed
with
the fetish
intimation
of mortality,
of Dutch to
vanitas
paintings.
’80s
advertising,
the littlereminiscent
scene is intoxicating
behold
and carries an
The one
without
a broom,
thevanitas
Shoulder,
shows a stiletto
intimation
of work
mortality,
reminiscent
ofOver
Dutch
paintings.
heel The
piercing
a pinkwithout
tongue,aheld
tautOver
by the
point.
The violence
one work
broom,
thelethal
Shoulder,
shows
a stiletto
is
rendered
obscene
byheld
the cartoonish
the violence
forms
heel
piercingmore
a pink
tongue,
taut by theabstraction
lethal point.ofThe
and
the gorgeous
periwinkle
background.
The
scene is framed
by
is
rendered
more obscene
by the
cartoonish
abstraction
of the forms
an outline
that doubles
as a wide-open
mouth,
whiteissquares
and
the gorgeous
periwinkle
background.
The scene
framedatbythe
top
and bottom
representing
teeth. A handlebar
mustache
above
the
an outline
that doubles
as a wide-open
mouth, white
squares
at the
mouth,
recurring
character in
Smith’s
work, slyly
points toabove
the male
top
and abottom
representing
teeth.
A handlebar
mustache
the
personaathat
is synonymous
the history
painting.
mouth,
recurring
characterwith
in Smith’s
work,ofslyly
points to the male
In the
shocking with
Medusa,
tangled
of green snakpersona
thatquietly
is synonymous
the ahistory
ofmass
painting.
ing atop
a broom
sharply
contrasts
withmass
a background
fade of
In the
quietlyhandle
shocking
Medusa,
a tangled
of green snakbright
reda broom
to hot pink.
Smith
subverts
the Greek
of this fade
female
ing atop
handle
sharply
contrasts
with a myth
background
of
monster,
turned
to stone
when
looked
eyes,
by
bright
redwho
to hot
pink.men
Smith
subverts
thethey
Greek
mythinofher
this
female
portraying
herturned
as eyeless.
with they
the other
works
oneyes,
view,by
monster,
who
menIntotandem
stone when
looked
in her
the
paintingher
embodies
theInpsychodrama
seeing
being
portraying
as eyeless.
tandem withofthe
otherand
works
on seen
view,that
women
artistsembodies
face when
with the
legacies
of being
modernism.
the
painting
theengaging
psychodrama
of seeing
and
seen that
—Nora
Griffin
women
artists
face when engaging with the legacies of modernism.
—Nora Griffin
Sex On Paper, curated by Mathew Cerletty, Kaleidoscope, December, 2015
Emily Mae Smith: Medusa’ at Laurel Gitlen, Art News, 2015
Emily Mae Smith: ‘Novelty Court’, by Ken Johnson, The New York Times, July 7, 2014
Emily Mae Smith: ‘Novelty Court’ - NYTimes.com
http://nyti.ms/1n1wIIY
ART & DESIGN
Emily Mae Smith: ‘Novelty Court’
By KEN JOHNSON
JULY 7, 2014
Bucking the messy abstraction trend, Emily Mae Smith’s Pop-style paintings
comment on sex and gender with satirical ingenuity. Two posterlike works on
view in this pint-size gallery mimic the cover of The Studio, a late-Victorian art
magazine, with the title lettered at the top and the Art Nouveau-style image of a
female artist painting in her studio rendered in thin black lines on white
grounds. To each of these genteel images, Ms. Smith has added the realistic,
semi-transparent color image of a much-enlarged piece of fruit — a banana and a
tomato — highlighting the idea of the woman as a desirable commodity.
Three smaller and funnier paintings take aim at masculinity. Each has a
handlebar mustache painted at the top, and rows of small white squares, like
teeth, lining the picture’s upper and lower edges. This makes the whole picture
into a man’s wide-open mouth, which serves, in turn, as a frame for other
imagery, like the pink buttocks accented by a monocle in “The Inspector.”
“Tongues and Coin” has pink tycoon tongues reaching out to catch falling silver
coins. A just-fired gun barrel rises from the bottom edge in “Smoking Gun.”
There’s a sense of personal import in these works that might have as much
to do with the artist’s own psychic conflicts as with sexual politics in general. The
exhibition’s biggest and most promising painting is a self-portrait as the magic
broom from Disney’s “Fantasia.” Leaning against the inner edge of a floralpatterned Art Nouveau border and nonchalantly smoking a cigarette, this
androgynous, mop-haired figure defies the world’s usual categorical imperative
with exemplary élan.
Junior Projects
139 Norfolk Street, Lower East Side
Through July 6
A version of this review appears in print on June 27, 2014, on page C24 of the New York edition with the
headline: Emily Mae Smith: ‘Novelty Court’.
© 2014 The New York Times Company
artforum.com / critics' picks
9/4/14, 1:1
Emily Mae Smith- Junior Projects, Nathaniel Lee, Art Forum, June 2014
critics' picks
9/4/14, 1:19 PM
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links
Len Lye, Ann Lye, 1947, photogram, 15 9/10 x
13".
downstairs gallery. Anticipating Stan Brakhage by decades,
Israel conspicuous
Lund
One
that appears
in three small
1938. Bold, unfussyelement
marks congregate
crosshatch,
films suchand
as A
Colour Box, 1935, and Trade Tattoo, 1937,
Emily Mae Smith
paintings
features
a
man’s
toothy
rictus
as
a framing
device.
elongating into dervish-like forms
with each
successive
pioneered
direct
filmmaking
with their
complex printing, color grading, and direct-drawing techniques. In
Patricia Esquivias
drawing,
in reads
tune with
his
fantastical
sketches
for black-and-white
monumental
The
mouth
as
male
because
there
is
a
handlebar
the
latter,
utilizing
outtakes from the British General Post Office’s Film Unit’s
“The View from the
sculptures nearby encased that
had to wait forLye
to through sprightly editing, racing patterns, and a Cuban orchestra score
transforms
mustache
painted directly documentaries,
above
it, and technology
because
of the
Window”
catch up to their ingenuity.
what
was
once
excess
footage
labor into a superb
modernist
work.The
TheInspector,
film is an exuberant
declaration
Emily
Mae Smith,
2014, acrylic
“DTR” Chiclet teeth centered above and below the of
gaping
picture.
of the accumulative beauty and civic
virtue
of industry
circulating
across
land
Len
Lye, Ann
Lye,
1947,
photogram,
15 9/10
x and sea, flashing such
on
linen,
14
x
11”.
“Other
Primaryselection
Structures”of the artist’s short films takes over the
A
looping
For instance, in The Inspector,
the teeth
circumscribe
a is maintained by the mails” before cutting to a train speeding by in
as “The
rhythm of trade
13".
downstairs gallery. Anticipatingdeclarations
Stan Brakhage
by decades,
“Pleh”
simplified
image
of
a
cartoonish
backside.
Hovering
above
the
night,
abstract
shapes
bopping
and dashing across the composition, and colors exploding like
films such
as A Colour Box, 1935, and Trade Tattoo, 1937,
Christoph
Schlingensief
fireworks.
With
straightforward
intentions
anddirect-drawing
aand
clearother
premise,
Lenaids
Lye created
work by
far ahead
of its time
the
right
cheek
is
a
monocle,
which
brings
to
mind
eyeglasses
sight
deployed
artists—
pioneered
direct
filmmaking
with
their
complex
printing,
color
grading,
and
techniques.
In
Charles James
and
deserving
of
ours
now.
the
latter, utilizing
black-and-white
from Johns—as
the British General
Post Office’s
Film Unit’s
Pieter
Brueghel
the Elderouttakes
to Jasper
iconographic
code
to mock myopic art critics. In this
from
Zoe
Beloff
documentaries,
through
sprightly editing,
racing
patterns,
andall
a Cuban
scoreand ass-hungry?
— Paige K. Bradley
“Living
with
Pop. adds
A Lyeatransforms
case,
Smith
wry jab at
the insatiable
male
gaze.
Are we
reallyorchestra
so obtuse
what was of
once
excess footage of labor into a superb modernist work. The film is an exuberant declaration
Reproduction
Capitalist
Maybe.
This
type
of
graphic
sophistication
and
screwball
humor
forms
an
incisive
critique
in
its
own right
of the accumulative beauty and civic virtue of industry circulating across land and sea, flashing such
Realism”
COMMENTS
COMMENTS) in favor
PRINT
as
it circumvents
any
dominant
of picture-making
oftosingular
intelligence
and eccentricity.
declarations
rhythm
ofPERMALINK
trade mode
is maintained
by(0 the
mails” before cutting
a train speeding
by in
Matthew
Ronay as “The
theKearns
night, abstract shapes bopping and dashing across the composition, and colors exploding like
Jerry
Schlingensief
Gaines
links
35 Wooster Street
April 17–June 8
A looping selection of the artist’s short films takes over the
small pencil drawings, “Sketch for Motion Composition,”
ker
e Byars
9/4/14, 1:
SLANT
Hervé Guibert
den Noise”
ubins
SLANT
A&E
PASSAGES
“Slip”
parlance
Microsoft’s
primarilyof
constructed
with Windows.
lines, as in his series of eleven
ossman
Wanted Men”
PASSAGES
search
BOOKFORUM
FILM
A&E
A well-established figure in the history of experimental
cinema, Len Lye’s stature in art history, especially as a crucial
InSanya
“Novelty
Court,” Emily Mae
Smith presents
paintingsofthat
link between
the early avant-garde
animation and midKantarovsky
century modernism,
has not toward
been properly championed in the
employ
aLye
personalized iconography
as a means
Jorinde
LenVoigt
United
This new
exhibition
BillTHE
Jenkins
DRAWING
CENTER and
unabashed
self-assertion
itsStates.
liberatory
effects.
Formakes
the significant strides
towards rectifying that, as well as introducing a body of
35
Wooster
Street
Kristan
Kennedy
most part, the motifs in these
canvases are proprietary, culled
drawings, paintings, and memorably mysterious photograms
April 17–June
8
“Ephemera
as Evidence”
from
sources
ranging fromnever
the Art
Nouveau
The
before
exhibited,trade
along bulletin
with documentation
of his
A well-established
“When
the Stars Begin tofigure in the history of experimental
kinetic
sculptures.
The
foundation
of
Lye’s
practice, which
Studio
to
Disney’s
Fantasia,
and
they
are
fed
by
the
artist’s
Fall:
Imagination
thestature in art history, especially as a crucial
cinema,
Len and
Lye’s
began
inanimation
the 1920s
andmidcontinued
all works
the way until his death
American
South” theinearly
robust
interest
theavant-garde
history
of ofdesign.
Ghost
Writer (all
link between
and
in 1980,
was championed
to visually convey
feeling of motion,
Jason
Loebs
century
modernism,
not been
properly
in thethe
2014)
is an
extremehas
case,
a
painting
which
repeats
the
letter
primarily
constructed with
lines, as in his series of eleven
Grossman
United
States. This new exhibition
strides
ENancy
five
times
in black paint on
amakes
whitesignificant
background;
the
middle
small
pencil
drawings,
“Sketch
for Motion
Composition,”
“With
Hidden
Noise”
towards rectifying that, as well as introducing a body of
1938.
Bold,
unfussy
marks
congregate
and crosshatch,
bar
of
the
letter,
which
would
complete
the
character,
has
drawings,
Kara
Walker paintings, and memorably mysterious photograms
into dervish-like
forms with
each successive
been
replaced
by a two-hued
wave.
Here,
alludes
never
before exhibited,
along elongating
with blue
documentation
of his Smith
“Witness”
drawing,
in
tune
with
his
fantastical
sketches
for monumental
kinetic sculptures.
foundation of Lye’s
practice,
which
to“Supports/Surfaces”
herself
throughThe
a corporatized
logo,
reformulating
the spirit
sculptures
encased
that had to wait for technology to
began
in the 1920s and continued
all thenearby
way until
his death
Louise
Lawler
series
intheir
the ingenuity.
corporate graphic
of Kurt Schwitters’s “Merz”catch
up to
in 1980, was to visually convey the feeling
of motion,
rk
sado”
FILM
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June
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he Martin Wong
n”
VIDEO
Emily
Mae SmithTHE DRAWING CENTER
Len Lye
DIARY
Ronay
500 WORDS
PREVIEWS
NEWS
search
follow us
fireworks.
With
straightforward intentions and a clear premise, Len Lye created work far ahead of its time
“City
as Canvas:
Graffiti
of ours now.
Artand
fromdeserving
the Martin Wong
Collection”
PERMALINK
“Ultrapassado” COMMENTS (0 COMMENTS)
“13 Most Wanted Men”
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Sarah Charlesworth
— Nathaniel Lee
— Paige K. Bradley
MACCARONEPRINT
INC.
630 Greenwich Street
April 25–June 14
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James
Lee ByarsCOMMENTS (0 COMMENTS)
Nancy Rubins
Trisha Brown
Polished pictures of a floating world, Sarah Charlesworth’s
series “Objects of Desire,” 1983–88, once aptly injected
beauty where it didn’t belong—deconstruction,
Los Angeles
postmodernism, Conceptualism—and inspired her peers and
Sarah
Charlesworth
MURRAY
GUY
Jacob
Hashimoto
later generations to do the same. The images have aged very
MACCARONE
Hiroshi
Sugimoto
453
West
17thINC.
Street
well. Today, these key works by the late artist come together
630
Greenwich
Street
Agnès Varda
June
as potent omens for our decontexualized image glut and
April12–August
25–June 14 1
Nathan Mabry
herald
own
long-standing
interests—gender,
politics,
Probing
the
relationship
between
historical
preservation
and
Polished
pictures
of a floating
world, her
Sarah
Charlesworth’s
Charles Gaines
Patricia Esquivias
series “Objects
of Desire,”
1983–88,
once aptlyfilm
injected
individual
memory,
Patricia
Esquivias’s
111-119
beauty where it didn’t belong—deconstruction,
Generalísimo/Castellana, 2014, traces stories around a
http://artforum.com/picks/section=nyc&mode=past#picks47352
postmodernism, Conceptualism—and inspired her peers and
1950s housing project in Madrid’s current-day financial
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