Detail of an oil on linen painting, titled Clear Message, dated 2019.

 is a New York-based painter who also works with collage, sculpture, printmaking, and artist’s books. He first became known in the early 2000s for a series of canvases depicting his own name, a motif that allowed him to experiment freely with abstraction and figuration and the expressive possibilities of painting. His work has since given way to monochromes, gestural abstractions, and varied imagery, including leaves, fish, skeletons, sunsets, and palm trees that the artist has explored in series. Smith’s work engages in a celebratory and prolific project of experimentation and refinement—upending the conventions of painting while simultaneously commanding a deep awareness of its history.

Smith was born in 1976 in Okinawa, Japan. Smith’s father was in the US Army, and his family moved frequently, eventually settling in East Tennessee, where the artist mostly grew up. His work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions at museums and arts institutions in the United States and abroad. In 2024, a solo presentation of Smith's work, 

, was shown at The Drawing Center, New York. Other recent solo shows include those held at the Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany (2016); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome (2015); Zabludowicz Collection, London (2013); The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut (2011); Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva (2009); De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands (2009–2010); Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna (2008); and SculptureCenter, New York (2004).

Smith’s work has also been included in important group exhibitions, such as 

Forever Young – 10 Years Museum Brandhorst

, Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2019–2020); 

Trouble in Paradise: Collection Rattan Chadha

Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox: 1989–2017

, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2017–2018); 

Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age

, Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2015–2016), and Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna (2016); 

The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World

, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014–2015); 

The Painting Factory: Abstraction after Warhol

, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2012); 

The artist has been represented by David Zwirner since 2017, and his first exhibition, 

, took place at the gallery’s 519, 525, and 533 West 19th Street locations in New York in 2019. David Zwirner Online presented 

, the artist’s second solo show with David Zwirner in 2020. Also in 2020, a solo exhibition of new paintings was presented concurrently at the gallery’s locations in London and 69th Street in New York. In 2023, a solo presentation of the artist's work was on view at David Zwirner, Paris.

Smith’s work is held in numerous international public collections including The Broad, Los Angeles; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Bob Nickas, a writer and curator based in New York, has organized more than 120 exhibitions since 1984. His books include 

Painting Abstraction: New Elements in Abstract Painting

 (2014) and four collections of his writings and interviews: 

(2018). Most recently, he has contributed essays to 

Bob Nickas

The most comprehensive overview of artist Josh Smith’s radical technicolor paintings.

looks at the artist’s vigorous repetition of particular motifs, illuminating his approach to painting as an exploratory medium for image production. Published on the occasion of Smith’s critically acclaimed first exhibition at David Zwirner, this catalogue features a new body of work that marks an important evolution for the artist. In these paintings, Smith sets the stage for a new mode of self-reflective commentary on image making, acknowledging that “the meaning perhaps arises in the making.”

A new essay by Bob Nickas treats the Reaper, Turtle, and Devil figures from 

as ciphers through which to understand Smith’s work. Nickas demonstrates how these new paintings restage and personalize the artist’s more abstract earlier works and illuminates the ways in which repetition functions within Smith’s practice. With more than one hundred illustrations, this book serves as the ideal introduction to Smith’s disruptive oeuvre.

a Celebration

Josh Smith: Emo Jungle

Josh Smith: Emo Jungle | Books

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.