MICHAEL E. SMITH

Born 1977 in Detroit, MI
Lives and works in Hopkinton, NH

Education
2008 MFA Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT
2006 BFA College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI
2005 AICAD New York Studio Program, New York, NY

Solo Exhibitions

2015
SculptureCenter, Long Island City (Upcoming May)
De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Upcoming Summer)
Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany (Upcoming November)
Michael Benevento, Los Angeles, CA
Établissement d’en face, Brussels, Belgium

2014
Lulu, Mexico City, Mexico
Reserve Ames, Los Angeles, CA
Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK
La Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy
Power Station, Dallas, TX
Susanne Hilberry, Ferndale, MI

2013
CAPC museé d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany
KOW, Berlin, Germany
Clifton Benevento, New York, NY

2012
Zero, Milan, Italy
Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal

2011
St. Louis Museum of Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO
Michael Benevento, Los Angeles, CA
Mönchehaus Museum, Goslar, Germany
Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Ferndale, MI

2010
Clifton Benevento, New York, NY
Koch Oberhuber Wolff, Berlin, Germany

2009
Susanne Hilberry Gallery (with Kate Levant), Ferndale, MI

2008
Koch Oberhuber Wolff, Berlin, Germany
Jenny Jaskey Gallery, Philidelphia, PA
MFA Thesis, Green Gallery Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT

2007
Susanne Hilberry Gallery (with Kate Levant), Ferndale, MI

Group Exhibitions

2015
Multi-Channel:Currents in Contemporary Video Art, West Texas A&M University

2014
The Little Thing Could Be Dearer, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY
The Registry of Moving Things, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine, France
Merzen, LiveInYourHead, Geneva
Little Forest, TOR 13, Bremen
Surplus living group exhibition, KM Tempoaer, Berlin
humanonhumain, Foundation D’Entreprise Ricard, Paris, France
Technokinesis, Blum & Poe, New York, NY
Soft Material, Wallspace, New York, NY
Another Look at Detroit: Part 1 & Part 2, curated by Todd Levin, Marlborough Chelsea / Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY
Slip, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, NY
Being Here & Being Thus. Sculpture, Object & Stage, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany
Geographies of Contamination, David Roberts Arts Foundation, London UK

2013
Of Love, Pain and Passioned Revolt. (Then Farewell, My Beloved, Til’ It’s Freedom Day), Zero, Milan, Italy
Painting from the Zabludowicz Collection Part II, Zabludowicz Collection London, UK
Prodigal in Blue, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, UK
Realization is Better than Anticipation, MOCA Cleveland, Cleveland, OH

2012
Believers, KOW, Berlin, Germany
A Disagreeable Object, Sculpture Center, New York, NY
Rennes biennale d’art contemporain, Rennes, France
Schach Matt, Märkisches Museum, Witten, Germany
Everyday Abstract – Abstract Everyday, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition of Work by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Honors and Awards, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Le Silence. Une Fiction, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco

2011
Real Simple / Selections from the collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg, Riverview School, East Sandwich, MA
Heads With Tails, Harris Lieberman, New York, NY
The Moment Pleasantly Frightful, curated by Chris Sharp, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, UK
Segalega, Zero, Milan, Italy
Proposal for a Floor, curated by Alex Gartenfeld, 1500 Broadway, New York, NY

2010
The Island, LAND/OHWOW, Miami, FL
The Artist’s Institute, New York, NY
The Unreadymade, FormContent, London, UK
Everlasting Gobstopper, Michael Benevento, Los Angeles, CA
The Art of the Artist’s Book, OU Art Gallery, Oakland University, Rochester, MI

2009
The Living and the Dead, Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York, NY
Blood Drive, Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, NY
If the Dogs are Barking, Artists Space, New York, NY
All the Splendors of the Earth, Center Gallery, Detroit, MI

2008
Hooking Up, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY
Q, Showroom, Basel, Switzerland
If I Told You…, Oliver Kamm 5BE, New York, NY
Sunshine, Rental Gallery, New York, NY
ASPN, Showroom, Leipzig, Germany

2007
Agro Bongo, Rivington Arms, New York
Sandy Landy, Showroom, Basel, Switzerland
Darjeeling, Daniel Reich Gallery, New York
Perfect Lovers, BC Project Room, Brooklyn, NY
Stuff, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI

2006
Attic, Anton Kern Gallery Annex, New York, NY
First Look, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ
Rich Rich Rich, Rich Rich Rich Project Space, Shelby Township, MI

2005
Video, Booster and Seven, Chicago, IL
Detroit Biennial: Actual Size, CAID, Detroit, MI
Here Comes the Sun, Commonwealth Gallery, Detroit, MI

Awards & Grants

2012
Arts & Letters Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters,  New York, NY

2009
Kresge Arts in Detroit – Artist Fellowship, Detroit, MI

2006
College for Creative Studies Senior Select, Purchase Award, Detroit, MI

Bibliography

2014
Jonathan Griffin, “After the End,” Frieze, November – December, p114-119
Nadja Rottner, “Michael Smith, Susanne Hilberry Gallery” Artforum, September
Will Heinrich, ”Technokinesis’ at Blum & Poe,’ Gallerist NY, July 30
Gabriel H. Sanchez, “Slip, Mitchell-Innes & Nash,” Artforum Critic’s Pick, July 22
Lucia Simek, “Michael E. Smith – The Power Station/Dallas,” Flash Art, May/June 2014, p120-121
Mark Rappolt, “Michael E. Smith – FutureGreats 2014, selected by Marc Rappolt,” ArtReview, March 19
“Michael E. Smith at Clifton Benevento,” Modern Painters, March, p92
Claire Barliant, “Michael E. Smith,” Art in America, March
David A. Willis, “Over the Edge: Michael E. Smith at Clifton Benevento,” NY Arts Magazine online, January

2013
Kerry Gaertner Gerbracht, “Headless Chicken in Empty Gallery: Michael E. Smith at Clifton Benevento,” Art in America online, December 12
“Michael E. Smith, CAPC Bordeaux,” Mousse Magazine, Issue 41, December / January
Stephen Squibb, “Michael E. Smith, Clifton Benevento,” Art Agenda, December 6
Andrew Russeth, “Fall Arts Preview: Top 10 Gallery Shows – Michael E. Smith at Clifton Benevento,” Gallerist NY, September 18

2012
Colby Chamberlain, “A Disagreeable Object,” Artforum, December, p278
Dominic Molon, “The (Re)Shape of Things,” Mousse Magazine, Issue 33, p211-216
Steven Squibb, “Whitney Biennial 2012,” Art Agenda, March 23
Alex Gartenfeld, “Michael E. Smith,” Art in America, March 12
Jerry Saltz, “Leaving Babylon,” New York Magazine, March 1
Sharon Mizota, ” Michael E. Smith at Michael Benevento, Los Angeles,” Art Papers, January/February

2011
Jonathan Griffin, “Michael E. Smith, Michael Benevento, Los Angeles,” Flash Art, October, p109
Lynn Crawford, “ArtSeen – Michael E. Smith,” The Brooklyn Rail, May
Chris Sharp, “Michael E. Smith, Susanne Hilberry Gallery,”  art agenda, June 28
Chris Sharp, “A complete rest,” Kaleidoscope, Issue 10, spring 2011, p42-49
Simone Menegoi, “Michael E. Smith, Moenchehaus Museum Goslar,” Artforum (online), April

2010
Randy Kennedy, “Once on This Island. A D.I.Y. Art Show, The New York Times, 5 December, C1
Andrew Russeth, “After a ‘Blood Drive’, Michael E. Smith Returns to New York,” 16 miles of string (online), September 16
Catherine Wagley, “Liberated Women,” Daily Serving: An International Forum For The Contemporary Visual Arts, August 20
Sharon Mizota, “A Dark Romp Through Desire,” The Los Angeles Times, August 13

2009
“The Artist and The Art,” Detroit Free Press, June 14
“Kow-issues project #3,” Koch Oberhuber Wolff
“DEF, drafts establishing future,” ABC Art Berlin Contemporary
“Blood Drive, KED #04, Kasen Editions,” Zach Feuer Gallery

2007
Lynn Crawford, “Take Shelter,” Detroit Metro Times, July 11
Jonathan Bardelline, “No explanation, just experience at exhibit,” Observer-Eccentric, July

2006
Eve Doster, “Night and Day: Kate Levant,” Detroit Metro Times, June 10

September 12 – October 17, 2010

Clifton Benevento is pleased to present the New York solo debut of Michael E. Smith.

Michael E. Smith frequently uses degraded materials short-circuited from their immediate social and societal connections to locate a puzzling heterogeneity between form and knowledge, mutability and dislocation.

When installing the paintings and sculptures of this solo exhibition, Smith emptied the gallery’s floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of their texts. Not solely preparatory, this gesture is the lynchpin in a network of destabilized object relations. In the evacuated bookshelves Smith installed mlkw/blkvelcro, two altered milk jugs separated by a rough swath of Velcro, one cut in half, the other filled with industrial foam that will degrade and yellow by the exhibition’s end. The connotation of sour milk is a provocative stepping-stone between the calcified remains of working-class Western life and starkly emotive objects.

Relationships to the social environment continue to resonate in Untitled, where a mop bucket and surgical gloves rendered in foam and plastic are covered with black cotton and turned upside-down on top of three blinds and the gallery radiator. While certain superficial elements are evocative of canonical sculpture materials like marble, they equally arouse strong associations with the dirt horizons left on the window blinds now visible on the radiator. These material allusions are further complicated by tactility – Smith’s use of soft Nerf foam suggests a compelling inversion of the properties of marble.

The surfaces of Smith’s pieces are not tidy. This is not equivalent with an absence of a conceptual framework or an aesthetic function but an opaque awkwardness that tempts subjectivity. In Untitled, two animal snouts appear to bubble effervescently in the yellow plastic of a slightly abstract boomerang form. While this work suggests a snuffing-out of man’s best friend, it’s equally concerned with modes of evasion. The non-traditional boomerang further abstracts the use of mutilated materials, suggesting something hazy yet bound and beyond concise narrative.

Michael E. Smith holds an M.F.A. from Yale University and has recently had solo exhibitions at KOW (Berlin), Susanne Hilberry (MI), and has been included at group shows at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise and Zach Feuer (both NY). Upcoming projects include a solo exhibition at Mönchehaus Museum in Goslar, Germany. He lives and works in Detroit, MI where he teaches at the College for Creative Studies (CCS).

Chris Sharp, “A complete rest”. Kaleidoscope. Issue 10. Spring 2011.
PDF OF REVIEW

Andrew Russeth, “After a ‘Blood Drive’, Michael E. Smith Returns to New York”. 16Miles.com. September 16, 2010.
PDF OF REVIEW