Shinique Smith ( ) NOTE TO PRESENTERS. Please bring the following with you to the classroom:

Transcription

1 Shinique Smith ( ) NOTE TO PRESENTERS Please bring the following with you to the classroom: Poster of Open Secret, 2010 Laminated pictures of Bale Variant Number 0011, Double Dahlia, and Arcadian Cluster The Elements of Art posters

2 Shinique Smith Personal Data Born: January 9, 1971, in Baltimore, MD Lives and works: Brooklyn, NY Education: Institute College of Art; MFA, 2003; Tufts University & The School of the Museum of Fine Arts; MAT, 2000; The Maryland Institute College of Art; BFA, Professional Data Her most recent solo exhibition was in 2011 at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, WI. Since 2002, she has had solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. She is included in public collections such as The Denver Art Museum, Colorado; The Studio Museum, New York; The Margulies Collection, Miami; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami; and the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore. Her Inspiration: the vast nature of things that we consume and discard, which resonate on a personal and social scale. The graffiti of her youth, Japanese calligraphy and Abstract Expressionism are influences from which she extracts the graceful and spiritual qualities in written word and the everyday. ( Twenty years ago, Shinique Smith was a rowdy teenage graffiti tagger roaming the streets of Baltimore, using the city, Smith says, as a playground. The painter and sculptor, now based in Brooklyn, still finds inspiration in the urban landscape: in architecture, in the clothes people wear, even in the trash she sees on the street. Those magazines tied up for recycling? That bundle of old clothes headed for the dump? There's a random beauty there, Smith says. ( Reviews of Her Work: Shinique Smith, a young artist burst onto the New York scene in the early 2000s with an unusual sculptural medium secondhand clothes. The garments were tied together into cubes, called Bale Variants, which constitute three-dimensional versions of Smith s early fabric collages. From the start, the artist has had an affinity for Minimalist forms, though she eschews the pared-down purity of color and surface favored by that mode s classic practitioners. Instead, her bales, which evoke poverty through the derelict quality of their materials, frequently echo the tormented look and texture of Action paintings. ( Now seen in galleries in New York and across the country, Smith's artwork is graffiti verging on the calligraphy she studied in college. Her fluid strokes are both forceful and ethereal, chaotic yet contained. The words are, for the most part, illegible, although as she is writing and painting, Smith repeats them to herself like a mantra, she says. It's like meditation. Some pieces explode off the wall into wild, three-dimensional tangles of cut paper; others incorporate Smith's street-trash idea, with tightly bound bundles of old clothes and other textiles. (

3 Shinique Smith's sculptures compress the lives of the objects she ties together clothing, textiles, shoes and stuffed toys; with twine, ribbon and the like. Her sensibility is influenced by abstract expressionism, graffiti and Japanese calligraphy. From Smith's Bale Variants to Bundles that range in scale from human-sized towers to more petite and portable assemblages, Smith's works refer specifically to the inequities of a global economy in which thrown-away clothing from the First World is shipped in bales to the Third. Her larger Bale Variants memorialize what is lost along the way. Her more recent projects have shifted towards immersive installations that reflect on the economies of excess and need. ( Three Big Ideas about Shinique Smith: You may choose to address all or just one of these ideas. It depends on the age of the kids along with your interests. Feel free to come up with your own questions. The ones here are meant as a guide. 1. Her work doesn t fit the usual definition of art. Many people think of art as painting, drawing and/or sculpture. Ask the students to give examples of different forms of art. (Cartoons, music, collage, dance, etc.) Ask them to come up with a definition of art. Then ask them if her work fits their definition. Here is the definition of art according to Wikipedia: Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect. 2. She is an artist of color. We selected Shinique Smith as the February artist because we noticed that the Art in the Classroom presentations are usually of male artists who are no longer living, and we thought it fitting to place her in February, Black History month. Some questions to ask along with this theme: a) Why do we have a Black History Month? b) Who are some famous African American artists? c) Why is it important to experience art from people of different backgrounds? 3. She uses items in her work that are discarded. Some questions to ask along with this theme? a) What happens to our stuff when we throw it away? b) Do we need everything we have? Or do we want it? c) What do they think she is saying about stuff or things through her artwork? Activities: Just as with the Three Big Ideas above, choose what you would like to do. Make the presentation work for the level of the class and for you. Be creative and have fun. 1. Look at the large poster of Smith s work together as a class and then have the students pass around the laminated pages. Possible questions for discussion:

4 a) Do you like the art work? Why or why not? Would you want to decorate your bedroom with her art work? b) Don t tell the students the titles of the pieces. Have them create their own titles. Once you share the titles with them, see if they can explain why she gave the art those names. 2. Use the Elements of Art poster to explore the pieces: a) COLOR: Which colors do you see? Are there dominant colors? b) SHAPE: What are the dominant shapes that you see? c) TEXTURE: What are the textures in her art work? d) LINE: Are there strong depicted in the pieces? e) LIGHT: Is there a sense of light and shadow? f) SPACE: What is most important in this painting? Does everything seem of equal importance? 3. Collect a bag of clean pieces of garbage from around your house. Ask the students what they could make out of the pieces. What could they make that would be functional? How would they assemble the pieces to create something artistic? Bibliography: The sources from which I cited on pages two and three are good ones to get a fuller sense of Smith and her art work. For information on Black History Month go to For information on our consumption and garbage disposal view The Story of Stuff and look at Where Does our Trash Go? Open Secret (2010)

5 Bale Variant Number 0011 (2005) Clothing, accessories, twine, and wood, 72 in x 28 in x 28 in, 150 pounds Double Dahlia (2008) Screenprint, archival inkjet, and collage, x Arcadian Cluster (2006) Clothing, fabric, found objects, acrylic, collage & binding. Approximately 8 h x 11 w x 8 d, ( lbs)