Paul DD Smith
Four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, three feet at night | 04.06-26.2021
(images of the installation at Stroboskop below)
i.
[a birthday party]
one is never instructed in the game of sardines, but learns from carpet burns at the age of mimicry. this is not a story, but a coping mechanism, a forced asymmetry. one person hides from sight and the rest run around, desperately seeking. as each player finds the hiding spot, they must join in the hiding. the last one is the loser. bodies interlock to fit the silhouette of a sofa or a garden shed. a confused mass of limbs like a teetering pangea. squirming, sweating, giggling, and her, susanna. a bright, still room and time’s heavy hammer. show me how you walk backwards when you were aroused for the first time.
ii.
[center of the universe]
two old men with rhyming hairlines,
rapping cringe over the millennia.
the world, their tablecloth,
their stained and optic regime -
eat, prey, lust.
everything’s on the menu
except for salty eel,
which they tie to their feet for
travel and to get closer.
hunched over the balustrade,
their greasy plastic bibs flutter
into the next scene.
they pretend not to notice
you pretend not to notice too.
iii.
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jesuit missionaries of the 17th century rush into the chinese palace.
klak! klak! klak! they startle the reflection pond. a snow pear twists in suspicion.
so-called gifts were presented to the emperor and his court:
a chinese calendar rotated twice, revealing a small, cosmic doormat. a bonus demonstration on how to position the toes like a wedge in time. ( -_-)旦~
an elevator pitch for a sacred, but uncharismatic house. on the reverse side, a heavily disabled comment section.
( -_-)旦~
lastly, a small painting of a haloed mother and child, a maternal sigh frozen in time. within the painting, the fact of a painted image. ( -_-)旦~
painting as virtual as a papercut.
the jesuits sang the merits of male cyclops vision, praising rays of destruction issued from the eye. the incense clock began to spit fssssst!
from fever, knowledge.
what are the consequences of human-centric images?
iv.
[19 m above sea level]
susanna.
growls through her teeth
when performing the
cantilever technique.
the sphinx who
wears a baby tee
lies across her
ankles, masterfully.
together they invent
a new geometry based
on complaints.
behind the world
was made of quicksand,
gurgling and unclassified:
- hurry, the temple insurance is about to expire
- open the faucet
- what’s a faucet?
- it’s you, it’s me, when we let everything inside, out
(the old estate is flooded, everything underwater - the kitchenette, the highway, the moon.)
v.
[nbc fantasy board meeting]
in the season finale of 'empire of yes', a hollywood cruiseline veers off-course. in order to survive, real celebrities suck suck-shaped lemons. major sponsors pull out. desire's hips, stretched by the tide, loses signal. crying or winking, the stunt doubles develop a life-saving genre. klink! into the cupholder. a small refund for every viewer.
Lamps with various supports and painted silk shades have become a recurring form and motif in Paul DD Smith's work. At Stroboskop, Smith presents a new lamp sculpture that fills the entire space, and, for the first time, invites the viewer to step inside of it. In making this space available, Smith evokes the tradition of the nineteenth century panorama, a hybrid of painting and architecture designed to create the unobstructed impression of a 360 degree view of a simulated environment. Smith uses this circular form of display to explore variations on the iconography of Susanna and the Elders, a story from the old testament in which a bathing female protagonist becomes subject to the voyeurism of two old men. The topic often has a double edged treatment, dramatizing the Elders' voyeurism as obscene while offering Susanna's naked body to the patron's/viewer's gaze. Rather than recreating this invasive gaze and the illusory panoptic principle of the traditional panorama, Smith's lamp intends to frustrate a definitive reading of the scene and fixed interpretation of bodies. The semi-transparent material of the lampshade itself, made of painted and partially embroidered silk, questions the stability and placement of the image: is it inside or outside (inverse and obverse) or cast as shadows on the walls? The aim is for this instability to reflect a metamorphic and “chimerical” approach to figuration that resists an acquisitive and petrifying gaze.
Exhibition opening: Friday, June 4, 2021 18:00-21:00/ 21:00-4:00 by appointment
For the opening night of the exhibition, appointments can be made from dusk (9pm) until dawn (4am) to experience the full nocturnal illumination.
To book your spot:
Email us: stroboskopartspace@gmail.com
DM us via Instagram @stroboskop_art_space
or SMS +48 731215128 / +48 507239123
"Four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, three feet at night" will be on view at Stroboskop by appointment until 25.06
Zbzhuuh and the Elders, artist edition for Et al. Press
As a challenge to the often voyeuristic treatment of Susanna's body in this genre of painting, in Paul DD Smith's print on silk, Susanna performs the rough silhouette of a peacock or heraldic bird that confronts the elder's gaze. This shadow play takes place in the vacant space of a landscape based on Albert Whitlock's matte painting for the closing scene of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The print's title substitutes Susanna's name for Zbzhuuh, the name Susanna encrypted with a cypher, according to which each letter moves 7 places along in the alphabet. This play with encoding intends to underline the figure's counteraction to the elder's gaze with a shapeshifting riddle.
The composition of the print is a reworking of a part of the installation on view at Stroboskop. The continuous silk painting of the lampshade takes a circular form that the viewer can step inside. It contains numerous silhouette performers such as the peacock figure that substitute for Susanna, all of which are embroidered into the silk to cast their shadows onto the walls of the space through the illuminated, semi-transparent silk. The print edition preserves this partial transparency and has the potential to be backlit.
As a challenge to the often voyeuristic treatment of Susanna's body in this genre of painting, in Paul DD Smith's print on silk, Susanna performs the rough silhouette of a peacock or heraldic bird that confronts the elder's gaze. This shadow play takes place in the vacant space of a landscape based on Albert Whitlock's matte painting for the closing scene of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The print's title substitutes Susanna's name for Zbzhuuh, the name Susanna encrypted with a cypher, according to which each letter moves 7 places along in the alphabet. This play with encoding intends to underline the figure's counteraction to the elder's gaze with a shapeshifting riddle.
The composition of the print is a reworking of a part of the installation on view at Stroboskop. The continuous silk painting of the lampshade takes a circular form that the viewer can step inside. It contains numerous silhouette performers such as the peacock figure that substitute for Susanna, all of which are embroidered into the silk to cast their shadows onto the walls of the space through the illuminated, semi-transparent silk. The print edition preserves this partial transparency and has the potential to be backlit.
Lampy z różnymi wspornikami i malowanymi jedwabnymi kloszami są powtarzającą się formą i motywem w twórczości Paula DD Smitha. W Stroboskopie Smith prezentuje nową rzeźbę-lampę, która wypełnia całą przestrzeń i zaprasza widza aby wszedł do jej środka. Udostępniając tę przestrzeń, Smith przywołuje tradycję dziewiętnastowiecznej panoramy, hybrydy malarstwa i architektury, zaprojektowanej w celu stworzenia niezakłóconego wrażenia 360-stopniowego widoku symulowanego środowiska. Smith wykorzystuje tę kolistą formę ekspozycji, by zbadać wariacje na temat ikonografii Zuzanny i Starców, historii ze Starego Testamentu, w której kąpiąca się kobieta staje się obiektem podglądactwa dwóch starców. Temat ten często traktowany jest w sposób obosieczny, dramatyzując podglądactwo Starców jako obsceniczne, a jednocześnie oferując nagie ciało Zuzanny dla spojrzenia patrona/widza. Zamiast odtwarzać to inwazyjne spojrzenie i iluzoryczną zasadę panoptyczną tradycyjnej panoramy, lampa Smitha zamierza raczej udaremnić ostateczne odczytanie sceny i ustaloną interpretację ciał. Półprzezroczysty materiał samego abażuru, wykonany z malowanego i częściowo haftowanego jedwabiu, kwestionuje stabilność i umiejscowienie obrazu: czy jest on wewnątrz, czy na zewnątrz (rewers i awers), czy też rzucany jako cienie na ściany? Celem jest, aby ta niestabilność odzwierciedlała metamorficzne i "chimeryczne" podejście do figuracji, które opiera się nabytemu i petryfikującemu spojrzeniu.
Otwarcie wystawy: Piątek, 4 czerwca 2021 18:00-21:00/ 21:00-4:00 po wcześniejszym umówieniu się.
Dla optymalnego oglądania prac, Stroboskop będzie otwarty po wcześniejszym umówieniu się "po godzinach", od zmierzchu (21:00) do świtu (4:00), aby doświadczyć pełnej nocnej iluminacji.
Aby zarezerwować miejsce:
Wyślij do nas maila: stroboskopartspace@gmail.com
Napisz do nas przez Instagram
lub SMS +48 731215128 lub +48 507239123
"Four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, three feet at night" będzie można oglądać w Stroboskopie po wcześniejszym umówieniu w dniach 04.06-25.06.
