A fragmented piece of looped text, ners Banners Banners Ban, serves as the title and starting point for Greg Smith’s fourth show with the Gallery, an exhibition with loops and repetitions at its core. Setting the stage, the obsessive, circular drawing series, “Things I Should Have Read,” covers plenty of ground, only to end where it began. Similarly structured in time rather than space, the video, aptly titled “Loop,” is presented as a continuous cycle that echoes the physical configuration of its subject: a loop of canvas banners that a tenuously harnessed performer repeatedly unfurls and circulates underneath an elevated highway.
According to the mythology both of art-making and of American identity, breaking free of the inertia wrought by repetition demands risk, which promises clarity and the prospect of something different. The video “Loop” complicates this scenario, questioning whether risky behavior guarantees escape and reward or simply makes the cycle more robust. With repeated risk comes the increased chance of failure. At the same time perhaps repeated risks allows for a deeper understanding of the behavior and an increased comfort with possible peril, while sustaining the promise and hope for change. We hope for the best, prepare for the worst, when the difference between the two is not always clear.
