Bob Smith exhbition: From Space Countries Have No Borders

Emanuela Campoli is pleased to announce From Space Countries Have No Borders, Bob Smith’s first exhibition with the gallery. Bob Smith was born in Springfield, Mass. in 1944 and died in Miami in 1990 after being diagnosed with AIDS. He traveled to Europe in the early 70s, deciding to settle and work in Madrid after traveling to Egypt, Turkey and Greece and staying one year in Morocco. In 1977 he returned to the United States and settling in New York City.

Bob Smith’s work has been deeply influenced by the way he has navigated through these different contexts, alternating between pioneering artistic scenes and places far removed from what art assigns as new. In Spain, Smith showed at galería Vandrés, a symbol of artistic freedom during the last years of the Franco era. In Morocco, Smith spent most of his time in Essaouira, where he learned traditional woodcraft techniques and silver inlay. His visits to Greece and Egypt put him in direct contact with ancient imagery and myths that he would return to incessantly. Once settled in New York, Smith became part of the experimental East Village scene “before the Wall Hanging Art Boom” as Gary Indiana puts it. Led by the need to detach art from any restricted scene, Smith created a body of work that wove together all these experiences, and made out of space itself one of his main concerns.

His box constructions were an essential means to encase his memories and ideas in a mental landscape that is both dreamy and utopic as much as real and materially pressing. The boxes were made upon his return to New York, a city marked by decline and recession, with many storefronts boarded up. Many boxes are made out of abandoned drawers from a closed down chocolate factory in Tribeca, and contain crafted but also found objects on the street. Corporate Artttt (1984), is in itself a poignant and clear message around art and speculation, but it is also literally built with shredded dollars found on the Financial District. Inspired by and made as an homage to Joseph Cornell’s boxes, Smith’s walled sculptures are also a way of containing an era’s material culture.

Fact: America is not the world (ca. 1980) shows Smith’s search for meaning through a distinctive and often decentered spatial perspective. Travels had already made him particularly aware of the fiction of American exceptionalism, but landing in the East Village artistic community in the 80s also made him conscious of the insularity of the contemporary art scene of New York. If one looks closely, the word America is crossed out on the surface of the box to specify “NYC”. The collage From Space Countries Have No Borders, a resonant message today, evokes a utopian vision of a united humanity, where the artificial divisions of nation-states fade away in the vastness of space, or idealistically in art itself.

Smith’s boxes also delve into ideas of authorship, the commodification of art and consumerism. Super Bob (1981- 82) is a playful speculation around the name of the artist. Cutout texts about some Robert Smith, a name so common it touches anonymity, surround the figure of Super Bob, a made up collaged superhero, and links to Bobsband, a corps of artists - listed on the back of the box - founded by Ken Kaczmarzyk in 1978 which did shows in garage windows and considered itself a work of art cast in a corporate image. Super Bob is a myriad of details, multiplied by its side mirrors and embellished with blue glitter, a sort of outerspace fake snow like the ones used for snowdomes – the ultimate hypnotizing miniature setting.

His questioning on the derives of art and money never fall however into a bitter self-referential loop. VANDERBELT'S BATH 1983, refers to the Vanderbilt family, once the wealthiest of the United States, recognized worldwide as the new aristocracy of commerce and business, and for their role as eminent international patrons of the arts. A luxurious, flowered interior, probably inspired by Gloria Vanderbilt’s manic botanical designs, is fabricated from carefully hand ripped wallpaper, while the name of the piece (Vanderbelt) is misspelled to break the solemnity associated with the family (Sarah Schulman also remembers Bob Smith’s misspelling as something provoking and probably intentional in his sense of humor).

With its red backdrop, VANDERBELT'S BATH (1983) invites the viewer to engage in a nested spatial structure that is mysterious and sometimes abstract. Smith often uses the motif of the staircase, for him a symbol of passage between two realities, sometimes associated with access to consciousness or descent into the unknown. Although contained and intimate, these miniature scenes can also imply vastness and unsettling landscapes. An underwater cerulean grotto with a deserted book hides a diver on its way to the surface (The Shepherd’s Son, 1983), while a massive water mass seen from above, can illuminate or darken by switching its own lightning system (Untitled, ca. 1980). Several of Smith’s boxes contain different sources of light, from artificial light to peepholes and mirrors, allowing glimpses into or beyond their interiors.

For Smith, dreams are also a way of traveling. After taking part in dream workshops, he brought the experience to his friends’ homes, capturing their images while they slept and asking them to share their dreams in the morning. This process inspired his series ‘Sleepers and Dreamers,’ influenced by the original Carole Bovoso (Ione) experiment. Smith shared a loft in then deserted Tribeca with video artist Michel Auder. The 1981 Dreamer work of the same name hints to the intimate circle of artists Smith was part of including Alice Neel, Gregory Corso, Gary Indiana, Larry Rivers, Taylor Mead, Eric Bogosian, Annie Sprinkle, Spalding Gray, Bob Holman, Jack Waters, Blondell Cummings and Meredith Monk. But the Sleepers were outside of that realm, on the streets, in the park, sleeping in benches. The content of their dreams was inaccessible to him, but they were driven by the same, universal unconscious forces.

Bob Smith’s recent exhibitions include Días De Plata Y Oro, Galería Marta Cervera, Madrid, Spain (2023), Art Remains A Witness to a Life, Martos Gallery, New York, NY (2022). During the 70s, he exhibited regularly in Spain, France, Germany, Italy and was included in the 1973 Biennale de Paris at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. His solo exhibitions in New York during the 80s include Box Environments, Yvonne Seguy Gallery, New York, NY (1984), Wall Constructions,Schreiber/Cutler Gallery, New York (1986), Window at Chicago Books, New York, NY (1987), Box Constructions, Schreiber/Cutler Gallery, New York, NY (1987), Egyptomania N.Y.C. 1977- 1980, Terne Gallery, New York, NY (1987).

Organized in collaboration with the Estate of Bob Smith and Martos gallery.