Sam Smith (artist)

Sam Smith (born 1980, Sydney, Australia) is a contemporary Australian artist. He lives and works between London and Sydney.

From 2013 to 2014 he was part of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien International Studio Programme in 2013/14. Recent solo projects include ‘The Performative Minute’ at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2014); ’Notes on the Apparatus’ selected by Vdrome for the Artists' Film Biennial, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2014); 'Frames of Reference', a solo exhibition at The Royal Standard as part of their Liverpool Biennial 2014 programme (2014); and 'Form Variations' at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2014). He has participated in numerous group shows including 'Online/Offline. Encoding Everyday Life for Vorspeil Transmediale', Altes Finanzamt, Berlin (2014); 'Oblivion', Zweigstelle Berlin (2014); 'Conquest of Space', COFA Galleries, Sydney, Australia (2014); 'Larger than life', Temporära Konsthallen, Stockholm (2013) and 'Framed Perceptions', Sinne, Helsinki (2013).

Education

Smith is currently in the 2nd year of the MFA in Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, University of London. He completed a BFA with Honours at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney in 2003.

Awards and prizes

In 2014 Smith was awarded both the Goldsmiths International Postgraduate Scholarship and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. From the Australia Council Visual Arts Board he received a Skills and Arts Development grant in 2012 and was twice the recipient of a New Work grant (2007 and 2010). In 2007 Smith received the Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship to undertake a series of artist mentorships in New York City and Berlin. He also won the inaugural 2008 Wilson HTM National Art Prize, the 2008 Churchie National Emerging Art Award and was a finalist in the inaugural Premier of Queensland's National New Media Art Award.

The artist has undertaken a number of residencies, most recently he was part of the International Studio Programme for one year at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Previously residencies include Helsinki International Artist Programme, ARTSPACE, Sydney and Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo, Japan.

Publications

'Frames of Reference' with texts by Post Brothers and Jan Verwoert, 128 pages, 28 full colour pages, softcover with French flaps, July 2014.
A Broken Dimanche Press (ISBN 978-3-943196-34-4) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien (ISBN 978-3-941230-31-6) publication.

Art

Sam Smith works across sculptural construction and moving image, in an exploration of filmic language and its relationship to object. Intersecting the formal and conceptual frameworks that have previously separated these artistic disciplines he invests film and video with ideas relating to three-dimensional space while expanding object-based work into temporal territory, asking us to rethink sculpture as montage and cinematic editing as object construction.

Recent works

Encompassing video, sculpture and architectural elements, 'Form Variations' (2014) is a single channel video installation housed inside a viewing apparatus. Consisting of a wall structure, curtain, seating, window box and sculptural objects these items are lifted into the space from their roles in the video. The seating dimensions are based upon the two most common current widescreen cinematic display formats and the window box (which allows the audience to glimpse a reframed version of the video from outside the viewing room) also uses this logic, employing the 1.375:1 Academy ratio that was standardised in 1932. The video is shot in CinemaScope and uses this hyper-wide frame to maximise a precise cinematographic view on three-dimensional form. Key to the video is a re-imagining of the opening shot from Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse (1962) in which the character of Riccardo's arm transitions between animate and inanimate form.

'NOTES' (2013-) is a series of live video performances where prepared film, video and photographic material is structured together into a stream of collaged audio-visual vignettes. For each performance, through the manipulation of a shifting archive of sampled material, new sets of relations arise. From a central computer, the prepared footage is combined with satellite imagery; real-time video sources; text overlays and subtle software interventions. The work was first performed at Old School #25 in Lisbon, a curatorial project by Susana Pomba. This was followed by the Artists' Film Biennial 2014 at the ICA as selected by Vdrome; 24 Kitchen Street, Liverpool. In collaboration with The Royal Standard; 'THE PERFORMATIVE MINUTE', KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; and as part of 'Your Time Is Not My Time', De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (upcoming).

References

External links

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