JOSH SMITH

Living with Depression reflects Smith’s desire to push himself and his work into new territories.While the majority of the artist’s past exhibitions have focused on specific visuals—such as grimreapers, palm trees, turtles, or his own name—the presentation in Paris will be more pictoriallydynamic and less serialised, including both abstract and representational paintings as well ashybrid works that mix these visual modes. Recognising that successful paintings emerge fromthe structures and restrictions imposed on or by the artist, Smith challenged himself by relyingless on the colour contrasts and the high-tone palettes he has used in many of his past works,instead choosing to explore the nuances of red, which unites the works in the exhibition. AsSmith notes, “While still being seductive, these paintings switch pop prettiness for a more subversive delivery. You have to come in the back door as opposed to the front door withthese.’¹

Red has long been recognized as a complicated yet enticing color for modern andcontemporary artists. In exploring it in these new works, Smith nods to great modern painterssuch as Josef Albers, Philip Guston, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, andMark Rothko, all of whom created red monochromes or groups of paintings donepredominantly in red. Albers famously noted that he considered red to be the most difficultcolor to work with, a challenge that led Rauschenberg to create his seminal red paintings in themiddle of the 1950s.

Aware of the color red’s lineage and historical significance, Smith resolves each of these newcanvases on its own terms—responding to the forms and surfaces in such a way that everybrushstroke and mark or swath of color is intricately connected with every other formalelement. Paintings depicting New York’s built environment—which recall the cityscapes Smithdebuted in Spectre—take on new visual qualities and connotations when cast in scarlet,crimson, cherry, or mahogany tones. While self-contained, these paintings inevitably alsoconjure associations with the real world. Whereas the empty streets in the earlier works wereinspired by the artist’s neighborhood and surroundings during COVID-19 lockdowns, the skiesand red-tinted buildings in these new works read like a timely meditation on climate changeand natural disasters—such as the smoke from Canadian wildfires that recently brought theworst air quality in the world to New York and cast the entire city in an orangish-red glow.

Smith’s focus on palette in these new works also heightens the tension between figure andground. Though he applies his paint evenly across the surface of his paintings, in some works,animals or abstract forms stand out against their backdrop, while in others, their coloration andcontours melt or phase into the background. Figures, shapes, and forms may appear likeinnocuous carriers of color and line, yet their coloring can at times bring to mind bodily viscera.At the same time, the works remain resolutely painterly rather than abject—a clear reflection ofSmith’s sensitivity to and facility with his medium.

Josh Smith was born in 1976 in Okinawa, Japan. Smith’s father was in the US Army, and hisfamily moved frequently, eventually settling in East Tennessee, where the artist mostly grew up.His work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions at museums and arts institutions inthe United States and abroad, including at the Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany (2016);Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome (2015); Zabludowicz Collection, London (2013);The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut (2011); Centre d’ArtContemporain Genève, Geneva (2009); De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands (2009–2010);Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna (2008); and SculptureCenter, New York(2004).

Smith’s work has also been included in important group exhibitions, such as Before Tomorrow –Astrup Fearnley Museet 30 Years, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2023); Forever Young – 10Years Museum Brandhorst, Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2019–2020); Trouble in Paradise:Collection Rattan Chadha, Kunsthal Rotterdam (2019); Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox:1989–2017, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2017–2018); Painting 2.0: Expression in the InformationAge, Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2015–2016), and Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung LudwigWien, Vienna (2016); The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World, TheMuseum of Modern Art, New York (2014–2015); The Painting Factory: Abstraction after Warhol,The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2012); ILLUMInations, 54th Venice Biennale(2011); and The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, New Museum, New York (2009).

Smith’s work is held in numerous international public collections including The Broad, LosAngeles; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Moderna Museet,Stockholm; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; The Museum of Modern Art, New York;Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; and the Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, New York. Smith has lived and worked in New York since 1998.

1 Josh Smith in conversation with the gallery, June 2023.