Smith without words

Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne). The monograph that Mac/Val devotes to Smith (born in 1985) covers twenty years of creation, giving for the first time the possibility of understanding the entire work, its developments and its ramifications. However, for its curator Frank Lamy as for the artist and researcher, it is not a question of explaining it through its chronology since the series of delicate portraits of his loved ones evoking the transgender question and identity (“Löyly”, 2007-2012). “Here wide open”, a formula borrowed from the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, chosen as the title of the exhibition, encourages the visitor to apprehend photographs, videos, films and sculptures independently of any direction of visit.

Hybridizations and mutations

From the place, plunged into near-darkness illuminated by pockets of light, emanates an atmosphere imbued with mystery. The photographs of DamiSmith’s latest exploration of the interconnections of life, carried out with a thermal camera, introduces the subject. For several years, this camera has been the artist’s favorite tool for perceiving what the eye cannot see. Smith’s silhouette looms large in the images, an identifiable presence in other works as well. The body, starting with that of the artist, is a space of experimentation, experiences and metaphors. He expresses his way of being in the world, of experiencing it and of thinking about it as “an organism made of relationships, hybridizations and mutations”.

Smith’s intimate and spiritual journey innervates images, neon lights, sculptures, sounds and voices, and the scenography reflects the way in which the artist thinks about the exhibition, or, in his own words, “a threshold observatory”. The works there “transmit an experience of passage. They offer a thread to orient oneself in the world, because the world passes through them and prints its pressure, its ruptures, its returns. […] », he explains in the visit booklet entirely written by him. The text serves as (valuable) reference points for those who do not know the work, but also as information on the spatial organization, between the ground floor, the exhibition space, and the space upstairs called “Desideration(s)”. Because in mid-June, three weeks after the opening, the technical cartels and those intended for children were hung, but the texts developed on the various projects were still missing. Which could be detrimental to the public who discovered the work. “A first salvo of cartels written by Smith must arrive”then specified the commissioner, justifying the delay “by team problems and also by a desire not to give all the information immediately but to develop the question of mystery and unveiling”this taking into account the duration of the exhibition, until the end of January 2027.

The “Desideration(s)” space required, after reading the tour booklet, an effort of imagination. Because on the day of the visit, the foyer which was to host a program of meetings, performances, workshops, and ephemeral exhibitions by Smith’s friends, had no document to consult on the invited authors, artists, thinkers and scientists. On one of the walls was projected a video, viewed for the first time on the ground floor on a small screen, but which the visitor could enjoy seeing again in a big way.

The second room, intended to accommodate Smith’s studio for the duration of the exhibition, was still empty. “ The empty walls objectively in works of art for the moment will show works from our reserves and those produced by the artist which may or may not go down in the exhibition which will evolve”, indicated Frank Lamy, referring to the Mac/Val website for programming, while reminding that the museum is free every first Sunday of the month.