SHINIQUE SMITH: ALL PURPOSE
Moti Hasson Gallery
535 West 25th Street
New York City
212-268-4444
November 15 – December 29, 2007
By FAY KU
Shinique Smith Not on the Outside 2007
cushions, milk crate, album cover, dappled deer, books, acrylic, rope and carpet, dimensions variable
COVER February 2008: Self-Enhancement II 2007
socks, dimensions variable
Courtesy Moti Hassan Gallery
Shinique Smith’s raw materials are the waste products of the city. Plastic bags, discarded shopping cart, scraps of chintzy fabrics, etc., are reconstituted and reinserted into a reconstruction of urban life. Her use of detritus is neither a critique on the city’s capacity for consumption nor a comment on its poverty, but a confession of the very human tendency of imbuing things with meaning--and not being able to let go. Although formally aggressive, the exhibition reveals itself to be a nuanced and personal portrait of a life made up of things but not about things.
Visually, the work is bold and graphic. Smith’s uncanny design sensibility transforms everyday throwaways into spectacular riots of pattern, color and texture that assume a classical balance like an extravagant form of ikebana. In Thank you, come again (2007), the artist’s ex-boyfriend’s clothing and other discarded items radiate as overlapping play of patterns. There is logic to the sequence of the fabrics, a visual counterpart to a word chain puzzle. This arrangement becomes a sharp silhouette against the white of the canvas; it reads as a portrait of a bundle. Below, another heap sits atop a wooden panel floor. Except for a single red rose, here is the unloved stuff found underneath beds: unpaired socks, change, and bits of garbage. The “painting” escapes the confines of the canvas because it is not a picture of the ex-boyfriend but something analogous to the person himself, a metonym, a physical presence occupying space. Yet, Smith is free of sentimentality. Neither is the work exhibitionistic (in the manner of Tracy Emin’s Bed). The socks and clothing appear to have been, thankfully, laundered, and likewise the emotions processed and put into some order. The title itself is a wry demonstration of stoicism in the face of disappointment; a funny and independent woman’s clear-eyed view of the aftermath of a relationship.
Even in the slightly raunchy Not On the Outside (2007) Smith expresses yearnings and vulnerability with an economy of means and unlikely materials. In a muted palette of tan and golden browns, a folded cushion sits in a milk crate spray-painted dull gold. The cushion sandwiches a scrap of fur in a manner suggestive of the female sexual anatomy; tilted at an angle, it offers itself to the viewer. One edge of the crate rests on a lush rug alongside a fuzzy deer ornament--both items evoke the sense of touch. Inside the crate, less accessible, are the Linda Jones album, For Your Precious Love, Robert James Waller’s The Bridges of Madison County, Stendhal’s Charterhouse of Parma, and Fairfield Porter’s Art in its Own Terms. The internal, sheltered life promises romance, adventure and art.
Smith’s work is made up of simple objects that represent desire, a sense of one’s shortcomings, and even physical burden. In the self-deprecating and economical Self-Enhancement (2007), a pair of balled up socks is placed at chest level on the wall—a humorous reference to the practice of padding one’s bra. In the video Fairies, 2007, two young women transformed into human bundles frolic and skip until they tumble to the ground. Weighed down, these fairies cannot fly but bear their burdens lightly. Titles of other works such as Woman (2007), Daughter of the Chief (2007), and My Apples (2007) underscore the inherent feminism of Smith’s works, but the work itself is not conventionally feminine. Smith employs calligraphic, graffiti-inspired marks. The colors she chooses tend to be nasty and her fabrics cheap. There is a distinct urban toughness to her work. While Smith’s work look at first combative, there is also a sense of restraint. For the most part, her installations are on a modest, polite scale. Despite the obvious energy, the work never feels dangerous. The nature of the bundle is, after all, something bound, restrained, packaged. Smith remains coolly self-possessed. “All Purpose” is a sober, thoughtful view of the world, fiercely bundled.
