David Smith: Points of Power
Curated by Candida Smith
Exhibition dates: June – August 2012
Galerie Gmurzynska is pleased to announce a historical exhibition presenting, for the first time, a survey of the figurative impulse running throughout the work of David Smith, the most well known American sculptor of the 20th century. This will be seen through a rich context of Smith’s photographs, ceramics, sculptures and paintings; hung in dialogue with one another for the first time.
The artist’s daughter, Candida Smith, will curate the exhibition. She has selected each of the works on view and prepared the accompanying catalogue.
The exhibition’s title comes from an included text by Candida Smith who writes:
When I was a child in the Adirondack Mountains, all the girls loved horses. One of my friends asked my father to show her how to draw a horse. He said, “No.” He never taught my sister or me how to draw or paint representationally. It limited the imagination. But my friend insisted until he could no longer refuse. He said, “You begin with the point of power”.
This exhibition allows one to see the point of power in David Smith’s work and how the human presence emanates even from his most abstract works.
Smith refused to be hemmed in by the limitations of a single medium. Not only did he make drawings, photographs, ceramics, paintings and sculptures throughout his career, he often combined them in boldly innovative ways. This exhibition, presented at Galerie Gmurzynska’s Zurich location on the famed Paradeplatz, historically reconsiders the oeuvre of David Smith in a vibrant and necessary way.
A comprehensive, richly illustrated catalogue, with an introduction by the artist’s daughter, Candida Smith, and a scholarly essay by Sarah Hamill, accompanies the exhibition.