VIENNA.- Galerie Eva Presenhuber presents Studio News, the gallery’s sixth solo exhibition with the US-American artist Josh Smith.
In 2019, just before the dawn of COVID, Smith was interviewed by Ross Simonini for ArtReview in his studio warehouse in New York City, a multi-level live-work space and library with a lettuce garden in the basement.
Since the pandemic, Smith has emerged transformed as a new public persona. On Instagram, his presence suggests that he is an art-world ambassador, and on YouTube he hosts an ongoing lo-fi series called Studio News, in which he discusses his artistic pursuits and sometimes nothing at all. It is ‘straight man’ comedy, sprinkled with revelations about his inner life, all mixed up. It is the kind of unblinking deadpan that often looks back at you from Smith’s paintings: a sincere satire.
On the occasion of his new show Studio News at Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Vienna, Smith asked Simonini to do a second interview to follow up on their initial conversation and respond to its heavy, introspective tone.
Josh Smith was born in 1976 in Okinawa, Japan (his father was in the military) and, after a number of relocations, grew up mostly in eastern Tennessee, US. He has lived in New York since 1998. He has had several solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad at institutions including Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, DE (2016); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome, IT (2015); The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT, US (2011); Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva, CH (2009); De Hallen Haarlem, Haarlem, NL (2009); and MUMOK, Vienna, AT (2008). Recent group exhibitions include institutions such as de la Cruz Collection, Miami, FL, US (2023); Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, NO (2023); Museum Brandhorst, Munich, DE (2019); Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, US (2014); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, US (2012); Venice Biennale, Venice, IT (2011); and New Museum, New York, NY, US (2009).
