Artspeak
Matt Sheridan Smith
Matt Sheridan Smith (1980, Red Bank, New Jersey) received his BA from The New School for Social Research in New York in 2002. Smith’s conceptually based works, often consisting of readymades, use language or incorporate makeshift structures that are imbued with a sense of loss and point to the trajectory of an art object beyond the exhibition and its value as inventory or within an archive. Recent exhibitions include kaufmann repetto (Milan), Contemporary Art Museum (St Louis), Altman Siegel (San Francisco), as well as a public commission for the Public Art Fund in Downtown Brooklyn. In 2010, Smith was artist-in-residence for the annual Paris Residency organized by LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) and the mayor’s office of Paris. He currently lives and works in New York.
Exhibitions
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JASON DODGE, HADLEY + MAXWELL, ALLISON HRABLUIK, AARON FLINT JAMISON, SAM LEWITT, HEATHER AND IVAN MORISON, AVIGAIL MOSS, PAMELA ROSENKRANZ, DEXTER SINISTER, MATT SHERIDAN SMITH, OSCAR TUAZON
April 9–May 28, 2011
Presenting the work of eleven artists and collaborators, this exhibition refuses to deliver. It offers artworks sent via national postal systems addressed to the gallery as “Poste Restante”. Typically relied upon by travelers and lovers, “Poste Restante” is a request for a post office to hold a letter or package until picked up by its recipient. The works are exhibited as received, in unopened envelopes or parcels, accompanied by any paperwork generated during transit, including customs forms, bills of lading, and pro forma invoices. Delivery is deferred as the packages wait, held by the gallery for a recipient whose identity is unknown.
Objects are shaped by various encounters with systems of commerce, information, publicity and transportation. Stubbornly resistant to dematerialization, the art object remains local, specific and visible only in certain spaces, while operating in far-flung networks, both physical and immaterial. Guarantors of the exhibition as an exhibition, the art objects in Poste Restante serve as ground for exchanges of immaterial services, writings, and conversations. Through the suspension of delivery we remove the object-in-itself from scrutiny and see in clearer relief the systems the object both calls to life and circulates within.
The exhibition will travel to further destinations, including both commercial galleries and non-profit spaces, marking out a geographical network of communication and interests analogous to those of the participating artists and organizations. Parallel events, including talks, performances, and publications, will accompany the exhibition at each location.
Curated by Eric Fredericksen