He s just 24, but Lucien Smith has arrived. In the past two years the assemblage artist, known for c

He s just 24, but Lucien Smith has arrived. In the past two years the assemblage artist, known for canvases that mix paint with found objects, has shown in prestigious galleries from L.A. to Milan, including Half Gallery , OHWOW and Brand New . Smith s new solo show at the Suzanne Geiss Company , A Clean Sweep, which opens tomorrow, cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian is an homage to Giuliani-era New York in three parts. The first is a group of free-standing brooms, cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian collected off New York City streets by Smith and his friends, that are meant to signify the city s gentrification. The second is a series of Polaroid cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian grids featuring relics cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian of the city s urban landscape, including trash cans, crosswalks and playground signs. The third is a film (seen here) made in collaboration with a New York institution: Glenn O Brien.
Smith met O Brien, a cultural stalwart, through the Half Gallery co-owner Bill Powers, and after a series of conversations they decided to work together to pay wistful tribute to their city. I ve always felt that film was the ultimate medium since it s able to touch on so many different senses, Smith explains, and the gesture I m doing in the exhibition cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian is so subtle that I needed something to guarantee that it would set the tone. Also called A Clean Sweep, the short explores memory and transformation by cataloging landmarks that aren t even a decade old: 1 World Trade Center, cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian the 59th Street Apple Store, the new Beatrice Inn and spiffed-up SoHo. Smith shot his footage on 16 millimeter film in the early morning hours. It was really important that the film took place on a New York Sunday, with its gloominess right before the reawakening, he explains. O Brien provides the narration, a meditation on the life of the city in Melville- cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian and Whitman-inspired prose.
Smith was raised cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian on the Lower East Side by a musician father and a fashion designer mother, who moved him to L.A. in his teenage years. When he returned to the Big Apple to earn a B.F.A. at Cooper Union (he graduated in 2011), his memories of a recently bygone era became cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian my reference point for a changed New York, he says. The force of the feeling prompted Smith s foray into film. It s very much supposed to be a love letter, cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian he says, explaining that he chose Miles Davis s Kind of Blue as the soundtrack to supply cruise seattle alaska june 12 norwegian the mood. It was really about trying to trick the viewer — and myself — into reminiscing about something that s right in front of you and gaining an appreciation for the present day.
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