BLOUINARTINFO.COM | MARCH 2016 ART+AUCTIONThough she works between painting
and sculpture, I would call Smith an instal-
lation artist. All of her textile pieces are
made from found materials, which she
reworks by sewing in ribbon and adding
rope and small objects. She has a very
intuitive way of working, integrating
influences from the visual culture around
her into her pieces. Smith started out
doing graffiti, so sometimes she flattens
out the work and does design on the walls
to extend the sculpture—she’s working
between the second and third dimensions
and not making distinctions between
one and the other. We commissioned
Forgiving Strands, 2015–16, to install
in a breezeway of the building—it’s alone,
SHINIQUE SMITH, WORK IN PROGRESS. OPPOSITE, FROM LEFT: PRIVATE COLLECTION, HAUSER & WIRTH; THE CAROL AND ARTHUR GOLDBERG COLLECTION but placed in an interstitial space that
77
SHINIQUE
SMITH
joins other spaces, and you can walk
underneath and around it, so it’s not
constrained in a corner. Smith’s practice
is highly abstract; she’s not interested
in having a narrative attached to her
work, but there is an almost metaphorical
potential there—the building itself
becomes a body from which the work
hangs. She’s also doing a lot of stuffing,
tying, twisting, and bundling—these
textile-based processes are among the
key elements of her practice. Smith
isn’t directly influenced by Abakanowicz
per se, but she’s working off-loom in
the way that Abakanowicz pioneered,
so you see the same concerns, doubling
back and coming into play again.
—JS