Threading a Line

Our first meeting in your studio about a year ago resulted in a contribution to the Frequency exhibition catalogue at the Studio Museum in Harlem. As I remember, you described a particularly rich entanglement of experiences and ideas that have shaped your practice -- the spiritual activities of your mother, the colorful array of graffiti across Baltimore city blocks. One of the reasons why I wanted to return to these themes was to try to capture some of the aspects of that first conversation, which never became an emphasis in that text, but might be relevant to discuss on the occasion of your recent contribution to The Laundromat Project.

Alena Williams: I've noticed that in your early work, particularly 1985 (Ode to Shaken), writing seems to be quite important to you. Personally, I've found that as a writer, choices must routinely be made in order to produce a kind of coherent statement about the work of an artist— despite their projects emerging from so many disparate associative connections. As a result, many of the lines of inquiry that are possible in active dialogs become lost in the preparation of essays or texts. Could you elaborate on the role writing plays in your work?

Shinique Smith: Writing is big. The ability to write is an enlightened part of being human, or rather, it can be. I use words, words woven together from various sources to form poems, mantras to repeat in my head and to be subject/object of the work. The act of speaking, writing and the repetition thereof is a powerful act of manifestation. One of the lines that Rameses delivers in the film The Ten Commandments is: ‘ so let it be written, so let it be done.’ All the words of ‘god,’ so to speak, are written and done in similar spasms of contemplation and at a remove from outside interaction. Though aestheticized, what I do is similar, but is much more personal in nature. I think that even though the viewer cannot read the words, they feel them subliminally in experiencing the work. 1985 (Ode to Shaken) is a three-dimensional piece that references a graffiti artist that I knew as a teenager. It is really an homage to my youth and to that year of my life. I also did some work with sound and chanting that I am beginning to return to. I feel that the spoken word is most powerful and my text comes from words that have been spoken.

AW: I wanted to return to the book of writings by Agnes Martin, which was laid out on your desk when we first met. Her minimal, very much austere paintings would seem to be removed from the colorful expression that you pursue in your wall drawings and sculptures. Are there particular aspects of her writings that continue to be of interest to you? How do you see your work in relation that of Martin?

SS: I saw Agnes Martin’s works in person for the first time shortly before our last conversation, and I was overwhelmed by emotion. Of course, my work is quite different from hers. They are so simple— the lines moving in unison or what have you—but, she focused all of her energy onto a line and I could feel it coming from the work. I felt her presence even though it was not necessarily visible. This aspect of her work is so powerful, and I feel in ways, it is more powerful than my work’s explosiveness. Her solitude was explosive. I admire her greatly—her poems and things she wrote about striving for perfection. These are universal thoughts that I still return to for comfort within my tempestuous work.

I think my work is a more frenetic meditation. Like the whirling dervish.

AW: You've recently developed a series of diaries and journals for The Laundromat Project. Can you describe how you first conceived of your contribution to this project?

SS: It is one diary/journal made up of journal entries, moments— most of which were written while waiting for my laundry. I began these lists a couple of years ago, inspired by Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book. I also include images that I took around the city or neighborhood, notes that I found, quotes and small writing, thoughts I have about cleanliness and clothes and about my current solo show titled ‘ No dust no stain’—a meditative space at the Essex Street Market in New York. I wanted to open up a little and share with the strangers that I see and don’t see at the laundromats, which are funny places that you wipe clean and sit alone in. The diaries would be something to read while they wait for their clothes and they could take it with them or pass it along or leave it behind for the next visitor.

AW: Where are your laundromats located? How did you choose them? What is your relationship to the owners of the laundromats?

SS: I chose the laundromats nearest me as well as the one I use regularly, so that I could do laundry and engage with the people and the space at the same time. Nevertheless, the books are portable and could go into any laundromat. Some of the images I’ve included in them are from a block away or around the corner, things we all pass while going to the laundromat.

AW: When we first met, we discussed your reuse of clothing as a kind of cultural excavation. On the one hand, your formal treatment of this material (your tethering the clothes together with long swaths of fabric or string) seems intimately related to your engagement with line. While on the other hand, you are quite concerned with the kind of intimate "life" these materials may have once had. Can you describe how your recent projects, for example, your solo exhibition at the Cuchifritos Gallery in the Essex Street Market, or the diaries for The Laundromat Project, have continued your interests in these areas?

SS: The show at Cuchifritos, ‘No dust, no stain,’ was a project that expanded the parameters of how calligraphy and the fabric works can interact with viewers and also how viewers could interact with the work by creating an environment that could be used as a space for contemplation. It also became significant for me to use it as a meditative site. I come to the space periodically and clean, sweep and wash bowls and change the water in the bowls. It is my first overtly ‘meditative’ installation. In working on these projects which I feel have many connections, I was able to achieve more solitude—more visually and physically intimate experiences that relied more on the viewers interaction than on the imagery itself (either the bundling or the writing). I was also able to use writing in a different way for The Laundromat Project. I write a lot and I have a lot to say—so good or bad, I feel satisfied to share parts of it with people.

AW: How would you say that your strategies for working with found materials has evolved over the past year?

SS: I have begun to include more found materials, to incorporate more elements—things like carpet and linoleum that I started to use in my bundle pieces in the beginning, but had stepped away from briefly. I think that I am continuing to take risks and to see where experimentation leads me. I recently made a large baby-shaped sculpture of bundled clothing, and painted it entirely. So, paint has re-entered the picture. I have also bridged the writing and the bundling and continue to investigate their connection.

AW: What are your upcoming projects?

SS: I will present a new installation at PS1/MoMA in a group show ‘Altered, Stitched and Gathered,’ which will open on the 14th of December. I am excited to further the ideas from these two projects in this new piece. In the spring, I have a solo show at Skestos Gabriele in Chicago and a two-person show with Mickalene Thomas titled ‘ Prime Time’ at Caren Golden Fine Arts. In June, I will have a solo show at Franklin Artworks in Minneapolis.