Jewish Museum to Display Philip Smith's UNORTHODOX Exhibit, Today

Opening this Friday, November 6, work by Philip Smith will be included in the Jewish Museum's Unorthodox, a large-scale group exhibition featuring over 50 contemporary artists from around the world, whose practices mix forms and genres without concern for artistic conventions. Unorthodox will include two of Smith's photographic works: Librium A.M. and Dancing With The Stars-which serve as both memory and ghost-like images reminiscent of Smith's childhood, filled with séances and talking spirits. The result is a disorienting universe, characteristic of Smith's long association with both pop culture and metaphysical practices.

Since Smith began creating art, he has taken thousands of photographs of images ranging from old magic manuals and physics books, to medical literature, menus, and advertisements. More often than not, these photographic negatives served as image sources for his paintings. Painter James Nares visited Smith's studio, and was curious about these black-and-white film negatives that had acquired a thick patina of paint just by being in the studio. When Smith explained that they were his image library, Nares suggested they were photographic works in themselves and should be printed as such. Smith had the original 35mm negatives scanned, and as a result of the paint, scratches, and cracks that have accumulated on the negatives, the computer assigned random, vibrant, psychedelic colors at the screen-misreading the surface depth of the negatives. The accidental results are printed as is.

Though the artists in Unorthodox come from a wide variety of backgrounds and generations, they are united in their spirit of independence and individuality. Through over 200 works, the exhibition highlights the importance of iconoclasm and art's key role in breaking rules and traditions. Numerous works that examine social and political values, religion and humanism, trauma, and identity explore the relationship between the human figure and the modern creative process.