SNOWMAN / Josh Smith

11x17 inches, archival pigment print

Signed and numbered, in an edition of 50

Through paintings, collages, hand made books and ceramics, Josh Smith constantly challenges preconceived notions assigned to “Art” and the role an “Artist” is expected to play. Many of his paintings start with his name, a fish, a leaf, skeleton or stop sign as a point of departure, but will typically avoid a formal representation in favor of exploring the edges of abstraction. By forcing his painted images to be somewhat arbitrary, Smith wrestles with taking the act of painting beyond aesthetics, so that his viewers may judge each piece solely on the terms he has assigned to their own creation.

In the edition that Josh Smith has made for The Song Cave, he offers us the image of a ceramic snowman resting in a field of digitized snow. “Josh” scrawled across its dirty bottom. A self-contradictory symbol of sweet impermanence frozen in the process of self-creation, or self-portrait made of snow? Either way, this deadpan stand-in announces its arrival into Smith’s oeuvre with a self-knowing grin.

Born in 1976, Josh Smith is from Knoxville, Tennessee. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in the US and abroad, most notably The American Dream at The Brant Foundation in Greenwich, CT in 2011, ILLUMInations in the 2011 Venice Biennale, Hidden Darts at Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna in 2008, the 2007 Lyon Biennial, and Wade Guyton, Seth Price, Josh Smith, Kelley Walker, at Kunsthalle Zürich. The artist lives and works in New York.

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