Josh Smith: Living with Depression
David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Josh Smith at the gallery鈥檚 Paris location. Marking Smith鈥檚 first solo exhibition in the French capital since 2009, the presentation follows on the artist鈥檚 two previous solo shows with David Zwirner: Spectre (2020), held concurrently at the gallery鈥檚 locations in London and East 69th Street, New York; and Emo Jungle (2019), which spanned all three of the gallery鈥檚 19th Street spaces in New York. Smith also staged High as Fuck, an offsite exhibition in collaboration with the gallery, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In Spring 2023, Smith launched Studio News 2 on David Zwirner Online, featuring new hand-painted monotypes that build upon the artist鈥檚 signature paintings of sunsets and palm trees in generic tropical locales.
Living with Depression reflects Smith鈥檚 desire to push himself and his work into new territories. While the majority of the artist鈥檚 past exhibitions have focused on specific visuals鈥攕uch as grim reapers, palm trees, turtles, or his own name鈥攖he presentation in Paris will be more pictorially dynamic and less serialized, including both abstract and representational paintings as well as hybrid works that mix these visual modes. Recognizing that successful paintings emerge from the structures and restrictions imposed on or by the artist, Smith challenged himself by relying less on the color contrasts and the high-tone palettes he has used in many of his past works, instead choosing to explore the nuances of red, which unites the works in the exhibition. As Smith notes, 鈥淲hile still being seductive, these paintings switch pop prettiness for a more subversive delivery. You have to come in the back door as opposed to the front door with these.鈥�
Red has long been recognized as a complicated yet enticing color for modern and contemporary artists. In exploring it in these new works, Smith nods to great modern painters such as Josef Albers, Philip Guston, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, and Mark Rothko, all of whom created red monochromes or groups of paintings done predominantly in red. Albers famously noted that he considered red to be the most difficult color to work with, a challenge that led Rauschenberg to create his seminal red paintings in the middle of the 1950s.
Recommended for you
David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Josh Smith at the gallery鈥檚 Paris location. Marking Smith鈥檚 first solo exhibition in the French capital since 2009, the presentation follows on the artist鈥檚 two previous solo shows with David Zwirner: Spectre (2020), held concurrently at the gallery鈥檚 locations in London and East 69th Street, New York; and Emo Jungle (2019), which spanned all three of the gallery鈥檚 19th Street spaces in New York. Smith also staged High as Fuck, an offsite exhibition in collaboration with the gallery, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In Spring 2023, Smith launched Studio News 2 on David Zwirner Online, featuring new hand-painted monotypes that build upon the artist鈥檚 signature paintings of sunsets and palm trees in generic tropical locales.
Living with Depression reflects Smith鈥檚 desire to push himself and his work into new territories. While the majority of the artist鈥檚 past exhibitions have focused on specific visuals鈥攕uch as grim reapers, palm trees, turtles, or his own name鈥攖he presentation in Paris will be more pictorially dynamic and less serialized, including both abstract and representational paintings as well as hybrid works that mix these visual modes. Recognizing that successful paintings emerge from the structures and restrictions imposed on or by the artist, Smith challenged himself by relying less on the color contrasts and the high-tone palettes he has used in many of his past works, instead choosing to explore the nuances of red, which unites the works in the exhibition. As Smith notes, 鈥淲hile still being seductive, these paintings switch pop prettiness for a more subversive delivery. You have to come in the back door as opposed to the front door with these.鈥�
Red has long been recognized as a complicated yet enticing color for modern and contemporary artists. In exploring it in these new works, Smith nods to great modern painters such as Josef Albers, Philip Guston, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, and Mark Rothko, all of whom created red monochromes or groups of paintings done predominantly in red. Albers famously noted that he considered red to be the most difficult color to work with, a challenge that led Rauschenberg to create his seminal red paintings in the middle of the 1950s.
Artists on show
Related articles
In Paris, expressive ambivalence gives way to a lyrical defiguration of sameness, as the self holds on tight through the world鈥檚 psychoses.
What's on nearby
