Sable Elyse Smith (born 1986) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and educator based in New York. Smith works in photography, neon, text, appropriated imagery, sculpture, and video installation connecting language, violence, and pop culture with autobiographical subject matter. In 2018, Smith was an Artist-in Residence at the

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an African-American art museum at 144 West 125th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. Founded in 1968, the museum collects, preserves and interprets art created by African A ...

. Her work was first featured at several areas such as MoMA ps1, New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Philadelphia, MIT list visual arts center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and other places. The artist lives and works in

Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...

, and New York City. She has been an assistant professor of Visual Arts at Columbia University since 2020.

Early life and education

Smith was born in 1986 in Los Angeles, California. Smith holds a B.A. in studio art and film from

Oglethorpe University Oglethorpe University is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Brookhaven, Georgia, United States. It was chartered in 1835 and named in honor of General James Edward Oglethorpe, founder ...

and a MFA in Design & Technology from

Parsons the New School for Design The Parsons School of Design is a private art and design college under The New School located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhattan art ...

Work

Smith often uses surveillance tape to explore the structure of the incarcerated labor system and its corruption. Smith makes sculptures and two-dimensional works that raise questions about societal problems. Her work is inspired by her father who had been incarcerated for most of her life. Her work uses common objects from the prison system to question labor, class, and memory with emphasis on the everyday effects of institutional violence. Smith uses coloring books for children used in court setting as a subject in some of her 2D works. Smith has talked about her work stating: “The work should never say the same thing to every viewer. It is multi-vocal in its address and affect—that's the point." She has received several awards from Creative Capital,

Fine Arts Work Center The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise that supports emerging visual artists and writers in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The Work Center was founded in 1968 by a group of American artists and writers to support promising individual ...

, the Queens Museum, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Rea Hort Mann Foundation, the Franklin Furnace Fund, and Art Matter. Smith has also made sculptures from furniture designed for the prison system. Her large-scale sculpture ''A Clockwork'' (2021), a motorized rotating ferris wheel made of jet-black tables and chairs designed for prison visitation rooms, was included in ''Quiet as It's Kept'', the

2022 Whitney Biennial The 2022 Whitney Biennial, titled ''Quiet as It's Kept'', is the 80th edition of the Whitney Museum's art biennial, hosted between April and October of 2022. Described by ARTnews as the "most closely watched contemporary art exhibition in the U ...

Exhibitions

Smith has staged an array of solo shows at galleries and museums in the United States and internationally. Her notable solo shows include ''Sable Elyse Smith: Blue is Ubiquitous and Forbidden'' (2015), SOHO20,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

; ''Sable Elyse Smith: Ordinary Violence'' (2017-2018),

Queens Museum The Queens Museum (formerly the Queens Museum of Art) is an art museum and educational center at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. Established in 1972, the museum includes the '' Panorama of the City of New ...

, New York; ''How We Tell Stories to Children'' (2018), Atlanta Contemporary; ''or the song spilling out'' (2019), Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery,

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

; and ''Tithe'' (2022), JTT Gallery, New York. She has also participated in a large number of group exhibitions, including the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

(2022); and the

59th Venice Biennale The 59th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held between April and November 2022, having been delayed a year due to the COVID pandemic. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic directo ...

(2022).

Notable works in public collections

*''How We Tell Stories to Children'' (2015),

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

*''7655 Days'' (2017),

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, New York *''7665 Nights'' (2017), Whitney Museum, New York *''Visiting'' (2017), Brooklyn Museum, New York *''Coloring Book 9'' (2018),

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...

, New York *''8093 Days'' (2019),

Hessel Museum of Art The CCS Hessel Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of Bard College, in Annandale-On-Hudson, New York. The museum was built in 2006. The Hessel Museum is housed in the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS). The Museum draws from th ...

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York Annandale-on-Hudson is a Hamlet (New York), hamlet in Dutchess County, New York, United States, located in the Hudson Valley town of Red Hook, New York, Red Hook, across the Hudson River from Kingston, New York, Kingston. The hamlet consists main ...

*''Coloring Book 61'' (2020),

Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

*''Coloring Book 66'' (2020), Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York *''Coloring Book 98'' (2022), Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Sable 1986 births Living people American interdisciplinary artists 21st-century American artists Artists from Los Angeles Oglethorpe University alumni Parsons School of Design alumni 21st-century American women artists Columbia University faculty