SMITH: Ici grand ouvert

The MAC VAL presents Ici grand ouvert, a major monographic exhibition devoted to the French artist SMITH, born in 1985, who works across photography, moving image, installation, sculpture and performance.

SMITH's practice unfolds in open-ended cycles, often initiated through photography, in which chronology is undone and the boundaries between portrait and landscape are shifted. The work opens a space where the human, animal, plant, mineral and celestial realms intertwine, running through with a poetics of metamorphosis that goes beyond the purely real, inhabiting thresholds rather than certainties. Forms shift, identities move, bodies transform and perception changes register. Drawing on fluctuating states of consciousness, from trance to psychedelics, SMITH weaves a network of correspondences between bodily and cognitive practices and experimental scientific and technological devices, in search of a point of contact where spirituality, sensitivity and technique come together.

The exhibition design has been developed with architects and designers Matthieu Prat (Diplomates) and Sami Rintala, assisted by Toni Lozano. Bringing together earlier and new works, Ici grand ouvert offers a sweeping account of the artist's production in light of present and future concerns.

An accompanying catalogue, co-published with Palais Books, features contributions by Taous R. Dahmani, Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo, Florian Gaité, Edward Shanken, Eva Barois de Caevel, Lucien Raphmaj and Marie NDiaye. The project carries the Bicentenaire de la Photographie label from the French Ministry of Culture.