The Journal interview with Josh Smith

I had the pleasure of meeting with Josh Smith one Saturday morning in December at his studio in New York City to discuss his work and whatever else happened to come up. Unfortunately, the tape recorder wasn’t on our side, and that conversation is gone forever.

Where were you born?

In Okinawa, Japan. My dad was in the military service.

What do your parents do?

My mom is a first grade teacher and my dad is a physical therapist.

Was there any art around the house you grew up in? What was your first exposure to fine art?

No, we had a lot of Japanese art, prints and little objects that my parents brought back from Japan. There was no real art until I went to college. In Tennessee, where I grew up, there were a lot of arts and crafts. I saw a lot of people making nice things, but it was not called art in that situation. In college I began to learn how art could be magic and have possibilities beyond just its appearance.

When did you start painting the name paintings? And why?

I have always been aware of my name and how it sounds. In printmaking classes I started using it to see it reversed. It is embarrassing to see a painting of my name and it humbles me as I work. I have to paint around that feeling and continually compensate for it. The name paintings are like pre-fab buildings. You can build the painting around it. As an abstract painting, it serves as a vehicle and obstacle to prod the paintings forward.

I came across one of your name paintings in someone’s apartment recently, and it occurred to me that it was like the painting was marking territory. Do you have any interest in graffiti or tagging or whatever it’s called these days? Do you pay attention to that stuff when you walk around town?

Really, I pay attention to other things more. In New York, and more and more in other places too, it all seems like a big collage. But sure, graffiti is something I think about and relate to. There is not so much anymore and it has been innocuous for a while.

How long do you typically work on a painting? Do you have more than one going at once?

Sometimes I work on one for months and sometimes just for one day. Typically, the work comes in groups. So I would say in six months I might finish 10 to 20 paintings. Plus I make a lot of palettes and collages.

In regards to the palette paintings, are you conscious of the fact that the palette will end up as a work of art at the end of the day? Do you ever fuss with them? Are there any bad palette paintings or is every one successful?

For the last couple of years, I have been more aware of that. I will leave a palette around for a longer time to see what happens. Or I will use a smaller name painting that I do not need or like as a palette. I hope there are bad palettes. If I think one is particularly bad I will keep it and bring it home to look at, but I don’t micro-manage them, it’s one part of my art, I just let it go. I don’t control the way the palettes look. Even if you waste a whole day painting and you don’t have anything to show for it, at least you have a couple of nice, beautiful palettes. They freeze, like water freezes into ice. And then you stand them up, I don’t do that for the paintings, I make them on an easel, because I want it to be a fair fight. Although the palettes and collages are made in the same spirit as the paintings and I have mashed the look and feel of the palettes into my other work and vice versa, they are by-products. I feel like the painting as the white stretched canvas already looks good. I would hang it up just like that and I feel I can only make it worse. That is why I paint. It’s a challenge.

What are you reading these days? Do you read art criticism? Artforum?

Nothing really, mostly art books. I just read Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, which was good. Now I am reading a big compilation of crime stories, Sports Illustrated articles, The New York Times, whatever’s around, but I love looking at art books and I make a lot of artist books, too.

I met this girl Veronica–she was a student at the University of Tennessee a few years ago when I was a guest artist there–she is a good artist and she made this book, a handmade object. She gave it to me as a gift and asked me to make a copy of it for her. I guess she meant a photocopy. I had it offset printed and made it into a real artist book. It’s a really cool book and people like it a lot. I didn’t know how to contact her or anything.

So she has no idea that this exists?

I don’t have her phone number or e-mail address, but actually she just contacted me this week.

She contacted you after several years?

Well, I put a note on my website that said “Veronica, if you see this please contact me,” and I guess someone must have told her that they had seen it and she contact me. Now she is going to medical school.

That’s quite a romantic story.

Yeah, everything about art in my life is romantic. Everything about my actual life is not romantic. I don’t know, it just always goes like that for me. It’s just… I am just naturally fluid in it, other people are fluid in other things.

What do you think of painting in 2010? Will anyone be painting in 100 years?

I think my painting is good. It is a challenging time to be an artist because everyone is so well-read and intelligent, when the best painting has really nothing to do with that. There are a lot of people who need to take a break from trying to be a painter, they need time to reevaluate what they are doing. I do not know, but often paintings that I see look forced, which is so sad. But there is also good stuff, the problem is finding and seeing it. If there are people in 100 years, they will paint.

I’ve noticed the fish in your paintings are developing thick, pouting lips. Are the fish gendered or just regular fish? Is there sex in your work?

No, the fish are every gender. They are way beyond those types of things. Sometimes, certain striking things about humans flare up in my mind and can be diffused into those paintings. Eyes and mouths are easy. The fish are a stretch… like the name paintings, so by default I have a large margin of error when I work. I’m into the technical stuff of art. I don’t like the idea end of art. I think ideas come and go. Whatever. My ideas about art get erased and form themselves anew every day, I think. I hate art for hours of every day. I hate it. But at the end of the day it always ends up OK.

What do you fear most?

Today, letting people down.

What is a typical day in your studio like?

Get there as early as I can. The day starts and things begin to come up, I try to work intermittently all day. Any long stretches of painting occur at night or over the weekend. There are a lot of good distraction there, so I often catch myself doing something I never intended to do. I have someone helping me three days a week now, so on those days I try to accomplish more tedious or physical jobs.

Are you religious? Do you believe in a higher power?

I do have a passing interest in religion, I just don’t like any of them. There is nothing special about any of that stuff. It’s just about thinking and getting people to stop their normal lives and focus on something else for a while every day. So no, I try to believe in me. There are too many poseurs, cheaters and liars to believe in anything else.

Do you pay attention to politics?

Yes, a lot, but it’s depressing. So sometimes, for periods of time, I will take a break.

You seem to have a healthy disregard for the “Kiss-kiss. See you at the afterparty!” element of the art world, yet there is a strong dose of pop and Warhol in particular in your work, correct me if I’m wrong. How do you reconcile Warhol’s obsession with pop culture and celebrity?

People do the “kiss-kiss” thing to me sometimes. I’m not interested in that social aspect of the art world. I’m gone by then. When the band is onstage… my art is poof. I’m not. I’m not Justin Timberlake. I’m on the plane already. I can’t take it. As for Warhol’s obsessions, the fashion one has annoyed me at times. Recently, I started learning to respect the differences between people; he just liked different things. Rauschenberg loved modern dance, but I am not at all there yet. Everyone is different and complex, much like wild animals.

Would you talk a bit about “On the Water” and how that particular show came about?

This is a show at Deitch Studios in Long Island City, New York. I did a show there where I painted on the wall and just made all of my regular paintings on the wall. I called the show “On The Water” because the large gallery space is located directly on the east side of the East River. The show came about after Jeffrey Deitch came to know my work. He saw a show I did last spring at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva where, because of a shipping problem, there were no paintings and I painted on the wall for the first time. He contacted me and told me how much he loved it. I did not know him well at all, but I saw him briefly a couple of times and he asked me to do the show. He offered me the gigantic space in Long Island City, so I just went out there and did it. It was up for so long I am beginning to want to go and work on it again.

Your shows are usually titled. How does the title function in your work? Do you give titles to individual paintings?

I don’t usually title paintings. Titles are like literature or poetry and I am not a writer. Some artists do have the talent and confidence when it comes to titling their work. Occasionally, I will think of a phrase or sentence that sticks in my mind as a title, but I seldom apply it. The curators or galleries I have worked with on exhibitions always ask for a title far in advance of any show, so I do not put up much resistance, because it leaves me time to think about it. I try to choose show titles, which are straightforward and unpretentious. Sometimes I cannot think of anything, so I will just call the show something like “Josh Smith: Paintings.” The titles do help to mark the show in my memory when I reference it or refer to a painting from a particular exhibition. Here are some of the titles: “Make it Plain,” “Abstraction,” “Hidden Darts,” “Currents,” “On the Water,” “The City Never Sleeps,” “Zurich Abstraction,” “Who Am I.” Those are all that I can recall right now.

You mention that you are left-handed. Do you ever paint with your right hand?

No, I would for fun, or as a test, but as a deliberate way to make a different looking painting it sounds not worth doing. But anyway, I just use whatever hand is easiest to use for each particular situation. I would use my right hand no problem if there were a reason to, but otherwise I am saving it for Jesus Christ.