MICHAEL E. SMITH

Michael E. Smith creates sculptures made of discarded objects that take their final shape only within the exhibition setting, meticulously arranged through the simplest of interventions.

His materials are drawn from diverse sources: nature, streets, industry, and markets. They range from the familiar (milk jugs, sweatshirts, basketballs) and domestic (furniture) to the unexpected (animal specimens, dried pumpkins, bones). Found, selected, put out of function, and altered in his studio, these “material sketches ”, as Smith calls them, only become works of art after days of working on-site. A site that is thoroughly examined and manipulated—he attends both to its physical architecture —structures, lighting, pathways, and environmental systems (heating, ventilation)—and its interaction with human activities—patterns of movement, usage, noise, signage, and even emergency planning.

In his past exhibitions, Michael E. Smith has dimmed lights, blocked access, removed handles from the doors, and sparsely placed bits, pieces, and parts of objects within and beyond the exhibition space, as Smith often stages interventions in zones inaccessible to visitors(office, rooftop). Smith’s acute awareness of the expressive force of formal interrelations and the exhibition infrastructure creates presentations that command slowness, attention, and self-questioning. His work explores themes of growth and decay, and resonates with political and social experiences at large.

Michael E. Smith (b. 1977, Detroit) lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions that include: Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (UK), Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (DE), Secession, Vienna (AT), Kunsthalle Basel (CH), SMAK, Ghent (BEL), Kunstverein Hannover (DE), De Appel, Amsterdam (NL),Sculpture Center, Queens (US), La Triennale di Milano, Milan (IT), Power Station, Dallas(US), CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (FR) and Contemporary Art Museum,St Louis (US), among others. Smith’s work was included in May You Live in Interesting Times, the 58th Venice Biennale, and additionally, he participated in Quiet as It’s Kept, the 2022Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, as well as the 2012 edi-tion of the Whitney Biennial. His work is held in the permanent collections of the WhitneyMuseum of American Art, New York, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Walker ArtCenter, Minneapolis, SFMoMA, San Francisco, MCA Chicago, SMAK, Ghent, and Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany, among others.

Cédric Fauq has been chief curator at CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux since September 2021. His most recent projects include the group exhibitions Air de repos(Breathwork), Barbe à Papa and Le Club du Poisson-Lune, as well as the performance festivalL’Académie des Mutantes. At Capc, he has also collaborated with artists Nina Beier, AbbasZahedi, Olu Ogunnaike, Sung Tieu, Aria Dean and Maxime Bichon. From 2020 to 2021,he was curator at the Palais de Tokyo. Prior to that, he curated exhibitions at NottinghamContemporary (UK). Cédric Fauq is also developing independent projects and recently wor-ked with Matthieu Laurette on his retrospective exhibition at the MAC VAL.