B180110115752 006

I Will Carry The Weight

Josh Smith

日期
18.01.2018 | 24.03.2018
画廊
London

Massimo De Carlo is pleased to present I Will Carry The Weight, an exhibition by Josh Smith, the artists first London gallery show since 2007.

The American painter Josh Smith, whose practice encompasses prints, drawings, and sculptures, creates works characterised by dramatic brushstrokes, compulsive repetition of subjects, calligraphic lines and the intensity of colour.

In I Will Carry The Weight, the title being the artists answer to Gang Starr’s song Who’s Gonna Take the Weight?, Josh Smith presents a series of new, large and small scale, oil canvases depicting variations of the personification of death: the grim reaper. In each canvas the grim reaper is portrayed with the customary black robe and scythe, positioned in surreal and hallucinatory dark landscapes marked by multi-coloured and vibrant brushstrokes.

The artists commenced the series by drawing cartoon sketches, and slowly started to render the sketches in oil. The weightiness of the subject was for Josh Smith a gift, allowing him to devote more energy to the paintings themselves, giving each painting “enough personality to warrant its existence”. The artist assigns to the paintings titles that he felt nebulously amplified his desire for what each work might convey. About the viewers potential quest for a meaning in the series Josh Smith states “There is no meaning except that they mean everything you want them to. I believe any good painting could just as easily mean nothing as it could mean everything. Ideally you look at the paintings and then think about whatever it is that you end up thinking about. That’s what happens with me”.

The exhibition also includes a group of monotypes, made a few years earlier, portraying the same subject. Josh Smith will usually go into the print shop before he starts to make a new set of paintings and is able to test out everything and see if an idea is worth pursuing. Monotyping produces a unique print, made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The image is then transferred onto a sheet of paper by pressing the two together. In this case, this was done with a printing press. About making the monotypes Josh Smith says, “I feel as if the monotypes are a type of painting. The process of creating a monotype allows for reaction and reflection as you are creating. In this exhibition you will notice the changes between the monotypes and the paintings.”

In both the canvases and the monotypes, Josh Smith creates a series of expressive and colourful memento mori. The inevitability of death is depicted not as an evil or sinister fact, but rather as a harmless reality.

Josh Smith

约什·史密斯1976年生于日本冲绳,在美国田纳西州诺克斯维尔市长大,现工作居住在布鲁克林。


约什·史密斯精于多种媒介的创作,包括绘画、拼贴、雕塑、书籍、版画和陶瓷,并且常常倾向于颠覆绘画与雕塑。然而,史密斯主要因绘画而闻名。


最具代表性的系列作品是以其名字为主题的手势画,其中,字母在符号与抽象形式之间变换不定。近年来,艺术家将作品中名字转变为更具象的题材,例如叶子、鱼、骨骼、昆虫、鬼怪,和日落。


史密斯选择这些相对随意的主题,并以一种带有侵略性的、有趣且重复的方式呈现。他用阴郁色彩和宽泛笔触,带领我们超越美学,专注于过程和成果,进而探究抽象的潜力。


其作品被许多国际机构收藏,包括:THE BROAD,洛杉矶,美国;卡内基艺术博物馆,匹兹堡,美国;蓬皮杜艺术中心,巴黎,法国;MODERNA MUSEET,斯特哥尔摩,瑞典;蒙特利尔当代艺术博物馆,蒙特利尔,加拿大;纽约现代艺术博物馆,纽约,美国;现代艺术博物馆维也纳路德维希基金會 MUMOK,维也纳,奥地利;惠特尼美国艺术博物馆,纽约,美国。