Sable Elyse Smith

Selected Publications

  • ...In that Empire
    By Sable Elyse Smith and Cal Siegel, Pacific, 2019
  • C.R.E.A.M.
    Texts by Jessica Lynn, A. H. Jerriod Avant, and Sable Elyse Smith
    Wendy's Subway, the Highline, New York, the Art for Justice Fund, 2018
  • Sable Elyse Smith: Landscapes & Playgrounds
    Artist book, Limited edition of 115 +25 Special edition, Sming Sming Books, 2017
  • Fictions
    Exhibition Catalogue, The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2017
  • Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon
    Exhibition Catalogue, New Museum, 2017
  • Ecstatic Resilience
    By Sable Elyse Smith, written in parallel with Lauren Halsey: Kingdom Splurge (4), Recess Art, 2016
  • Blue Is Ubiquitous and Forbidden
    Artist Book, Limited edition of 150, 2015

CV

b. 1986, Los Angeles, CA
Lives and works in New York, NY

2013 M.F.A., Parsons, The New School for Design, New York, NY
2011 B.A., Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, GA

Solo exhibitions

2023
FAIR GROUNDS, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2022
Tithe, JTT, New York, NY

2019
or the song spilling out, Carlos/Ishikawa, London, UK

2018
BOLO: Be on (the) lookout, JTT, New York, NY
Ordinary Violence, Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI
How We Tell stories to Children, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA
Sable E. Smith, CONDO, JTT hosted by greengrassi and Corvi-Mora, London, UK

2017
Ordinary Violence, Queens Museum, Queens, NY
and then the street lights-like a warning bell, Assembly (Recess), Brooklyn, NY

2015
Blue is Ubiquitous and Forbidden, SOHO20 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Selected Group Exhibitions & Screenings

2023
Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX
Not For Sale, NXTHVN, New Haven

2022
Introverse: Allegory Today, 80WSE Gallery, New York University, NY
To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood, The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston, MA
Combinations, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, New York, NY. Curated by Damien Davis and Alaina Simone
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI
The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, IT. Curated by Cecilia Alemani
Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Biennial 2022, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Curated by David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards
Not only will I stare, Christian-Green Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, TX
Prison Nation, The Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
This Tender, Fragile Thing, Jack Shainman Gallery, The Introverse: Allegory Today School, Kinderhook, NY

2021
Closer to Life: Drawings and Works on Paper in the Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Just Above My Head, JTT, New York, NY
Wild Frictions, Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Cincinnati, OH & Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin
Off the Record, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, conceived by Okwui Enwezor, New Museum, New York, NY
Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH

2020
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY. Curated by Nicole Fleetwood (Traveled to Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL, 2021; Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2022)
SI ONSITE, Swiss Institute, New York, NY
In lieu of an ocean (send flowers), curated by Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art
Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY. Curated by Antwaun Sargent and Matt Wycoff
Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts, and Banal Presents, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA

2019
On Refusal: Representation & Resistance in Contemporary American Art, MAC Belfast, Belfast, IE
Great Force, ICA VCU, Richmond, VA
Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art, OSilas Gallery, Concordia College, Bronxville, NY
Colored People Time: Banal Presents, ICA Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Poetry Is Not a Luxury, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY
The Smiths, Marlborough, London, UK
Mirror/Echo/Tilt, New Museum, New York, NY (collaborative project with Melanie Crean and Shaun Leonardo)
MOOD: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2018-19, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY
Radical Reading Room, Studio Museum 127, Harlem, NY
No One Is Innocent, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (screening)
The Land That I Live In, Matthew Brown Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2018
Moving Body, Moving Study, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Brooklyn, NY
Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the Justice System, CAMH, Houston, TX. (Traveled to Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA, 2019)
Production Values, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA SITElines.2018: Casa Tomada, SITE Santa Fe, Sante Fe, NM (cat.)
Agora, High Line, New York, NY (cat.)
Prison Nation, Aperture, New York, NY. Curated by Nicole R. Fleetwood. (Traveled to Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, OH, 2018; Southeast Museum of Photography 32114, Daytona, FL, 2019; and University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, 2020)

2017
Glass Ceiling: Art of Resilience and Fragility, UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, NY Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon, New Museum, New York, NY. Curated by Johanna Burton (cat.)
Other Romances, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY
"Elaine, let's get the hell out of here", Nichelle Beauchene Gallery, New York, NY. Curated by Ashton Cooper
Fictions, Studio Museum, New York, NY. Curated by Connie H. Choi and Hallie Ringle (cat.)
UPTOWN: nasty women / bad hombres, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY. Curated by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado
Memory is a Tough Place, Kellen Gallery at The New School, New York, NY. Curated by Macushla Robinson
Watchlist, SIGNAL, Brooklyn, NY. Curated by Goedele Bartholomeeusen and Kat Herriman
Your Body is a Battleground: VOLTA 2017, SVOLTA NY, New York, NY. Curated by Wendy Vogel
The Exposed Suture, Rond-Point Projects, Marseille, FR. Curated by Natasha Marie Llorens
Who Gets To Look, UC Irvine Galleries, Irvine, CA. Curated by Virginia Arce
FAWC Visual Arts Fellows Exhibition, Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Provincetown, MA
Without a Body, Andrea Rosen Gallery 2, New York, NY. Curated by SIGNAL

2016
Emerging Arts Fellowship Exhibition 2016, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY
With Liberty and (in)Justice For All?, Gateway Project Spaces, Newark, NJ
Partner in Crime, Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
Focus on the Funk: Journeys, Serpentine Gallery & Birbeck Cinema, London, UK
Over the Wall, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
Comrade What is Your Visual Bond?, Sunday Sessions: Screening, MoMA PS1, New York, NY
History As I Know It, On the Ground Floor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
History As I Know It, IMPeRFeCT Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2015
La Lucha II Dom & Haiti Visions of Tomorrow, Andrew Freedman Home, Bronx, NY
Dis Place, The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NY
Inherited, BRIC, Brooklyn, NY
Consequential Translations, Centro Cultural de Espana, Santo Domingo, DR
La Lucha, Rio Penthouse Gallery, New York, NY
RESPOND, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY

2014
Yeah That's What She Said, Specials On C, New York, NY

2013
Gaze Series #5: Transgressions, Artist Television Access, San Francisco, CA
Contemporary Temporary Sound Works And Music, organized by Daniel Neuman, Eyebeam, New York, NY
Present Futures, The Mandrake, Los Angeles, CA

2012
Silencing The Self, 25 East Gallery, New York, NY

Selected Curatorial Projects

2022
Beneath Tongues, Swiss Institute, New York, NY

2020
SI ONLINE: FEAR TOUCH POLICE, Swiss Institute, New York, NY

2019
C.R.E.A.M., High Line Art and The Kitchen, New York, NY

Selected Performances & Readings

2024
Studio Sound: Sable Elyse Smith, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (forthcoming)

2022
Belly of the Wail: A Score and Duet, Swiss Institute, New York, NY

2018
Performing Fictions, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

2017
LANDSCAPES & PLAYGROUNDS Book Launch, Recess Assembly, Brooklyn, NY 2016
Artist Love Poets, The Poetry Project, New York, NY
The Listening Party, MoMA Pop Rally, New York, NY
Sable Elyse Smith & Camel Collective, The Poetry Project, New York, NY
Reading & Launch Selfish Magazine: Issue 3, Over the Eight, Brooklyn, NY,

2015
Mirror/Echo/Tilt, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture: New York, New York, NY
Reading: Blue is Ubiquitous and Forbidden, SOHO20 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Sifting, The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NY
“AUNTSforcamera” Artist-Devised Tour, New Museum, New York, NY

2014
Heart, Voice, Song: Three Meeting Performances, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
Fallow Time: Movement Research Festival: Through Body, Through Earth, Through Speech,
Queens Museum, New York, NY

2013
Dissident Futures Art and Ideals Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Through Body, Through Earth, Through Speech, Eyebeam, New York, NY
Performative Reading Event for Daily Violence with Huong Ngo, The Window at 125, New York,NY
2012
The Future is Fantastic (If You Want It), New Museum, New York, NY

Selected Lectures

2019
Carceral Aesthetics: Sable Elyse Smith and Nicole R. Fleetwood in conversation at the ICA, London
Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith in Conversation with Nicole R. Fleetwood, New Museum, New York, NY. July 25.

2017
Public Art and Prison Reform. Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA. April 20.

2016
Why Explicit?: Panel w/ Lorraine O’Grady & Sondra Perry, in conjunction with Ellen Cantor
Exhibitions. Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, New York, NY
Afrofuturism Conference 2016: #BLACKISVIRAL: Panel: Hyper Visibility of the Black Image w/Caitlin Cherry & Devin Kenny, The New School, New York, NY
In Conversation w/Shaun Leonardo, March 23, 2016, BRIC, New York, NY
Comrade What is Your Visual Bond? Sunday Sessions: Panel, MoMA PS1, New York, NY

2015
New Museum R&D Seminar: Persona, Selected Participant, New Museum, New York, NY
Dis Place: Artist Talk, Moderated by Jessica Lynne, MoCADA, Brooklyn, NY
I Can’t Breath: Conversation w/ Shaun Leonardo Moderated by Kimberly Drew. BRIC, Brooklyn, NY

2014
In Conversation with Ayana Jackson and Monique Long. Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York, NY
Subtleties of Resistance. Free University at Kara Walker’s “A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar
Baby” In dialogue with Nicole Fleetwood, New York, NY

2013
Culture Push Honorary Fellow: Reading & Writing Group, as a member of the Fantastic Futures collective.
iLab Residency: Through Body, Through Earth, Through Speech, as a member of the Fantastic Futures collective. New York, NY

2012
It Is All Here. Memories Can’t Wait, panel participant. December 14, 2012. The International Center for Photography, New York, NY.

2011
History, Earth, Flesh. Panel participant at the Liberal Arts Symposium. April 3, 2011. Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, GA

Selected Grants, Awards, and Fellowships

2020 The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant
2018 Artist in Residence, Studio Museum in Harlem
2017 NYSCA Individual Artist Program in Film and Media
2016 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant
2016 Queens Museum Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artist Recess Art: Critical Writing Fellow
2016 Emerging Artist Fellowship Socrates Sculpture Park
2016 Creative Capital Fellow
2015 Art Matters
2015 Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture

Selected Collections

The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI
Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
ICA Miami, Miami, FL
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The New School, New York, NY
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Aeromoto Library, Mexico City, MX
Center for Book Arts, New York, NY
Everygreen State College Library, Olympia, WA
Free Black Women’s Library, New York, NY
MoMA Library, New York, NY
Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ
Rare Book and Manuscript LIbrary, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Ubana and Champaign, IL
SFMOMA Library, San Francisco, CA
Smithsonian Libraries, Washington D.C.