Barbara T. Smith: Proof

In fall 2023, ICA LA will present a comprehensive museum survey of Los Angeles artist Barbara T. Smith (b. 1931, Pasadena, US). A pioneer of the performance art movement of the late 1960s, Smith has long produced work that explores the self, sexuality, gender roles, physical and spiritual sustenance, love, life, and death. Assembling an expansive range of artwork and performance-related ephemera, the exhibition will survey Smith’s bold experimentation. While her groundbreaking performances have received critical attention, the objects Smith has made over nearly sixty years—many for, or as a result of, performances—are less known. This includes the artist’s radical Xerox works, mixed media assemblages, sculptures, artist’s books, drawings, paintings, photographs, and videos. Organized by ICA LA guest curator Jenelle Porter, this survey will celebrate Smith’s incomparable contributions to contemporary art, feminism, performance, and technology.

This exhibition builds on notable solo presentations such as Barbara T. Smith: The Way To Be (2023, Getty Research Institute), The Radicalization of a 50s Housewife (2011, University of California, Irvine), and The 21st Century Odyssey Part II: The Performances of Barbara T. Smith (2005, Pomona College Museum of Art). To accompany this singular presentation, ICA LA will publish Smith’s first survey catalogue, which will be designed by Kimberly Varella of Content Object (C/O) and released in the spring of 2024. Featuring an illustrated chronology of Smith’s life and artwork compiled by Jenelle Porter, the catalogue will also include commissioned texts by leading scholars Gloria Sutton, Catherine Taft, and Pietro Rigolo, on, respectively, Smith’s work as it relates to new technologies, ecofeminism, and the archive.