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Michael Smith, "Imagine the View from Here" 

Michael Smith (b. 1951 Chicago, IL, USA) graduated from Colorado College, CO, USA in 1973 with a degree in painting. Smith’s participation in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in the early 1970s formed the beginnings of an extensive network in New York’s creative community. The artist lives and works between New York, NY and Austin, TX, USA.

For forty years Smith has been producing performances, video works, large scale installations, commercial television, puppet shows, photos and drawings that have been shown in a variety of venues and contexts, including museums, galleries, cable television, nightclubs, children’s birthday parties and on the streets. Smith has been at the forefront of a generation of artists interested in crossing over and merging an art world context with popular culture. A prolific artist, Smith often collaborates with other artists, including Joshua White, Mike Kelley, Seth Price and William Wegman. Drawing on aspects and conventions of daily life and mass media, Smith creates witty and ironic works that speak to the trials and tribulations of everyday life as well as to our most human concerns.

In the late 1970s Smith conceived of two characters, who have since been featured in the majority of his works – “Mike,” a naïve, hapless but optimistic everyman, and “Baby Ikki,” a genderless, prelingual, easily-distracted infant. These consistent performance personas have developed and aged with the artist, over the course of many years. In Smith’s far reaching oeuvre, Mike has built a fallout shelter; had his own tv variety show; entered a disco dancing competition; starred in a music video; had a business that went bankrupt; and was an artist with a loft for sale, amongst other pursuits.

The video, Imagine the View from Here! (2018) finds Mike in Mexico visiting a timeshare location at the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, and the vibrant expatriate communities of San Miguel de Allende. Our protagonist is considering purchasing ‘an art immersive timeshare’ for a ‘fully curated lifestyle’ from The International Trade and Enrichment Association (ITEA), whose tagline reads ‘Elevation Through Association.’ The piece is underscored by a politically and economically charged subtext and climate, involving trade between the USA and Mexico.

Imagine the View from Here! (2018) was debuted at Museo Jumex as part of an exhibition with the same sales-pitch title – an installation which was marketed as a real estate opportunity within the museum building.

As with every project Smith develops, he starts the process with drawing. Smith states, ‘The drawing phase is the most fun and creative, a special window of opportunity. That’s the time I let myself go and not edit out ideas.' [1] These works on paper detail the creative process and the hilarious and serious inner workings of the artist. The selected Imagine the View from Here! drawings are colourful, imaginative and full of wry jokes.


[1] Miller, J. (2000) Michael Smith.Grenoble: Magasin-Centre National d’Art Contemporain.