Shop Takeover
Alexandria Smith
October 6–November 5, 2022
Gagosian Shop, London
Alexandria Smith is taking over the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade with sitting with my skin, a presentation of new paintings and a suite of drawings housed in the artist’s custom frames.
Smith, head of painting at the Royal College of Art, makes innovative mixed-media works that address issues of identity and growth within a constantly evolving personal cosmology. The presentation in London follows Pretend Gravitas and Dream Aborted Givens, her first solo exhibition with the gallery, which debuted in New York earlier this year. For the new body of work, on view throughout the Shop, Smith builds up dimensional elements in her painted compositions, including for the first time 3D-printed components.
Smith will also curate the reading room on the main floor of the Shop, featuring books that inform her practice, which range from experimental science fiction to Black womanist literature.
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Alexandria Smith takeover at the Gagosian Shop, London, 2022. Artwork © Alexandria Smith. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
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Artist Spotlight
Alexandria Smith
January 25–31, 2023
Alexandria Smith’s art addresses issues of identity as informed by autobiography, fiction, myth, collective memory, and history. She depicts metaphysical beings in primordial settings who embody states of growth and transformation. Her interest in hybridity and experimentation encompasses drawings with collage elements, paintings with sculptural assemblage, and immersive installations. Smith builds up dimensional components in her painted works, recently further articulating their surfaces through the incorporation of 3D-printed parts.
Photo: Ollie Adegboye
Honor
Alexandria Smith
Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow
Alexandria Smith was selected as a 2022 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow. Through a nomination and jury process, the international residency program brings together artists, writers, and composers for six weeks to work both independently and communally at a castle in Umbria, Italy. Since its inception in 1995, Civitella Ranieri has been committed to seeking diverse populations of Fellows who encompass a wide range of backgrounds, beliefs, orientations, and values.
Photo: Marco Giugliarelli, courtesy Civitella Ranieri Foundation, 2022
Screening
Alexandria Smith Selects
May 20–June 2, 2022
Metrograph, New York
metrograph.com
Alexandria Smith has curated a selection of films that have influenced her practice for many years, as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph in the theater and online. The program will feature cinema exploring themes of loneliness through the prism of the fantastical; notions of family through spirituality; and the deconstruction of narrative through the disruption and manipulation of time.
Still from Daughters of the Dust (1991), directed by Julie Dash
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