PAUL SMITH

BIOGRAPHY

Paul Smith’s first solo show was at ABC No Rio in 1983, about the civil war in Guatemala.  Reviewed by Walter Robinson, works were subsequently included in museum shows curated by Lucy Lippard, Leon Golub and Lowery Sims.  This was followed by three solo shows at the East Village’s Greathouse Gallery, and many group shows.  He was included in East Village surveys curated by Henry Geldzahler, Sur Rodney Sur, Phyllis Plous, John Caldwell, and Tom Solomon.  He participated in projects with Group Material, from “Subculture” on NYC subways in 1983, to “MASS” at MOMA, 1988 (in “Committed to Print”), and  “The Decade Show” in 1990 at the New Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art & the Studio Museum in Harlem.  He curated shows at ABC No Rio and NYC nightclubs, including works by then unknown artists such as Andres Serrano and Zoe Leonard.  Friendship with David Wojnarowicz led to a role in the film “Silence Equals Death” 1990, and in several of David’s photographs.

      A 1991 Fullbright fellowship in India led to writings on Indian artists, a solo exhibition and workshop at the National Centre for Photography, Mumbai, and a project with SAHMAT at Gallery Chemould, Mumbai and Rhabindra Bhavan, New Delhi.  In 1994 he showed Guatemalan paintings at galleries in Guatemala City, Antigua, and Panajachel--where he continues to work several months of many years.  His use of wide-angled, curvilinear picture planes led to participation in a widely traveled Hudson River Museum show, “The World is Round”, and inclusion in the book CURVILINEAR PERSPECTIVE.  From 2008 to 2016 he participated in the exhibitions and Free University of the Bruce High Quality Foundation, which he chronicled in “Pantheon of the Anteater” in ART IN AMERICA, Sept & Oct 2016.  His pinhole photography will be shown at Daniel Cooney Fine Arts, November 2020.

     P C Smith has written on art frequently for magazines ARTS, ART IN AMERICA, Artnet.com/magazine, THE ECONOMIST, etc.  His work is included in the public collections of the NY Stock Exchange, Coca-Cola, and The Carnegie Museum.  He received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant.  He’s taught at Brooklyn & Queens Colleges, CUNY, the Newark School of Art & the N J Center for the Arts.  He studied at Bowdoin College, Maine; Brooklyn College, CUNY, where he studied with Allan D’Arcangelo, Philip Pearlstein and Lee Bontecou; and the Skowhegan School.

STATEMENT

“At the start of the covid pandemic, on streets suddenly deserted, I saw essential workers still loading bicycles with food deliveries, even in freezing rain at night. This led to a series of photo- and painting-constructions made during the shut down. I try to make more human-shaped, two-eyed visual fields via these constructions. Using intersecting, curving picture planes creates a wider field of vision, with portions doubled in changed correspondence, suggesting shifts in time and movement.” –P C Smith

ROOM 513

http://pcsmit.blogspot.com/