GREG SMITH: failed password01 aspergillus: The Suburban

August - December 2023

GREG SMITH
THE SUBURBAN MILWAUKEE
The Suburban Milwaukee presents Greg Smith, failed password01 aspergillus, on view August - December 2023. Employing a plethora of failed passwords, the artist cryptically redresses language through tearing, cutting, and resewing the stolen words into elaborate installations.
GREG SMITH, xoxo, 2023 (detail)
How can we protect our words? How often have we watched them steamrolled or used as nefarious tools? In failed password01 aspergillus, I make an absurd yet genuine hail mary pass to give text shape. The roots of this project emerge from two observations:

First, English is one of the few languages without diacritics (those marks around text that guide pronunciation and give extra specificity and meaning.) It seems to me that the spaces surrounding words should be places for ornamentation and experimentation to add to English what every other fool language already knows: naked text fails.

Second, illuminated bibles left little to chance, even though (or because) their words were bestowed by god. Artists brought the full force of their imagination to illuminate above, below, and in between the text they worshiped. Words needed support.
GREG SMITH, weclomeletmein555 aspergillus, 2023, Canvas, acrylic, zippers, and thread, 129 x 81 in.
Now lets consider that hail mary01. thelord made Adam from dust33. okaythen oursm willbe 1million failed P@ssw0rd. nomore55 naked 7064text.

bless these stolen words: ilovejosh1, youletme999sad, mommyx2, wearelasers, ilovesanta, mensuck, letmein5, xacalacaoumaigood125, allofus, lonelygirl, trump12, REDLINE, crushing, derrida, snoopy!, horny101, walkdog, YrOHAPyxYFI

Some failed passwords were too simple, some were phished, and others were negligently revealed en masse by businesses running the websites. Each one is an embodiment of an individual's exposure and digital wreckage. Yet in them is a foundational solidity: our foibles condensed, they are the laugh tracks, submerged worries, north stars, and collective ids that we wrote together.

Using this sturdy and very human foundation, perhaps there is a pharmakon opportunity. I have built aspergillums/aspergillus out of cracked passwords that float above our dear words and fortify them. Aspergillum: a device used to bless with holy water in Christian rituals. Aspergillus: a fungus named after said device. Text needs an unlikely savior, and it is our failed passwords.

xoxoxoxo1, xoxo3, xoxo22, xoxo27, xoxoxo5487, xoxo777
Finally, a heartfelt thank you to the authors who put their writing out in the world so that people like me can abuse their pages amidst hail mary experiments. I deeply respect and am influenced by their words: William Burroughs, Octavia Butler, Joseph Beuys and Michele Bonuomo, David Graeber, David Wengrow, Chris Krauss, Simon Glendinning, Michelle Brown, Elizabeth Teviotdale, Nancy Turner, Susan Sontag, Fred Moten, Vladislav Surkov, Virginia Despentes, Howard Zinn, Legacy Russell, Rebecca Solnit, Grant Kester, Hernan Diaz, Elizabeth Daly, Simone de Beauvoir, Tetsumi Kudo, Nelson Goodman, Camille Paglia, James Baldwin, Yukio Mishima, Plato, Francois Rabelais, Maggie Nelson, T. H. White, and Sheila Heti.

- GREG SMITH
GREG SMITH, xoxo, 2023, Fabric, thread, rocks, tent pole tubing, book pages, screen, zippers, acrylic, whiteboard, whiteboard markers, EMT tubing, wood, hardware, electronics, motor, Dimensions variable, approx. 192 x 108 x 96 in.
GREG SMITH (b. 1970) received his PhD in Physics from Harvard University in 2000 and completed his MFA from Hunter College in 2005. The artist stages exhibitions that consider the possibilities and problems presented by our current technological deluge. He builds installations using an amalgam of unlikely materials and processes that trace contemporary limits of language, ownership, and governance. Smith has had solo exhibitions at the Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, IA; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL; the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; the Cress Art Gallery, UT, Chattanooga, TN; and White Columns, NYC, among others. Smith's films have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC. His work has been featured in exhibitions at The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Miami, FL; Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; and Artists Space, NYC. Smith was awarded a Guggenheim Grant in 2013.

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GREG SMITH: failed password01 aspergillus: The Suburban

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