Zak Smith

Zak Smith is an American artist. He was born in Syracuse, New York in 1976, and grew up in Washington, D.C. After receiving a BFA from Cooper Union in 1998, he studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and went on to receive an MFA from Yale University in 2001. He lived and worked in Brooklyn until October, 2007, when he moved to Los Angeles.

Art

Smith's body of work primarily comprises portraits, drawings, and abstract art executed in acrylic and ink. An enduring interest in comic books informs the artist's dynamic and obsessively detailed depictions of the people, objects, and stories that inhabit his world. Allied with punk and hardcore culture and the DIY aesthetic associated with these movements, Smith draws on traditions of decorative art to produce visually complex, labor-intensive pictures characterized by intricate patterns and vivid coloration.

Smith is best known for his portraits of female subjects - with an emphasis on eroticism as well as the mundane aspects of his subjects' lives - and his page-by-page illustrations for "Gravity's Rainbow". The book "Zak Smith: Pictures of Girls" (Distributed Art Publishers, 2005) includes selected plates from the series "Girls in the Naked Girl Business", "100 Girls and 100 Octopuses", and "One Picture for Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel" Gravity's Rainbow, in addition to stand-alone pieces from the period 2000-2005. In 2006 Tin House Books released a book of the "Gravity's Rainbow" illustrations, which were featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art and are now in the collection of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. [ [http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/artists/smith/index.html Zak Smith on the Fredericks & Freiser Gallery web site] ]

Recently, Smith has begun donating sizeable portions of the profits from the sale of his work to activist causes such as Food Not Bombs and the West Memphis 3. [ [http://www.kavigupta.com/exhibit/exhibitions.php?id=70 Zak Smith on the Kavi Gupta Gallery web site] ]

Other public collections containing Smith's work include the Museum of Modern Art and the Progressive Corporation. Zak Smith is represented by Fredericks & Freiser Gallery in New York City. Smith's work has also travelled as far as London as it was exhibited in the Fred Gallery in October 2007.

Pornography

In February, 2006, Zak Smith made his pornographic debut, under the pseudonym "Zak Sabbath," in the VCA film "Barbed Wire Kiss," by director Benny Profane (whose name is itself taken from the Pynchon novel V..) In the widely read porn blog Fleshbot, Smith mentions working on a project to help fund a film student's "NYU thesis project" entitled "Freaky Kids I & II," in 1996 but declares, "here's where I'm making the BIG money" (although most of the money he makes in porn is actually donated to anarchist/activist group Food Not Bombs). He followed this up with an appearance opposite Pixie Pearl in Eon McKai's debut film for Vivid Entertainment, "Girls Lie" [ [http://fleshbot.com/search/zak%20sabbath/ Zak Smith on Fleshbot] ] , "Bullets And Burlesque" from Bad Seed Productions, with Sasha Grey, Marie Luv, and Satine Phoenix and "Hospital", also with Vivid, with Coco Velvet and Mandy Morbid.

Bibliography

2006 "Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow" (Graphic Representation of a Novel/Illustration). Portland, Or:Tin House Books. ISBN 0977312798

2005 "Zak Smith: Pictures of Girls" (PUBLISHED BY: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.)(New York, NY) ISBN: 9781933045221

See also

*Aesthetics
*Contemporary Art
*Visual Arts

Notes

Online resources

View works by Zak Smith:
* [http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/artists/smith/index.html Fredericks & Freiser Gallery profile of the artist]
* [http://www.zaxart.com Zak Smith's website] View articles about Zak Smith:
* [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/title.htm The Modern Word]
* [http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/artists/smith/press/index.html May 2002 ArtForum review by Martha Schwendener]
* [http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/artists/smith/press/press_03.html 2004 Whitney Biennial catalogue]
* [http://www.fleshbot.com/sex/pornstars/zak-smiths-second-porn-155672.php "Zak Smith's Second Porn", Fleshbot]
Interviews
* [http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/honigman/honigman6-7-04.asp Interview about art, Artnet]
* [http://esposito.typepad.com/TQC_5/Zak_Smith.html Interview on Gravity's Rainbow piece, Quarterly Conversation]
* [http://www.bmezine.com/news/guest/20060920.html Interview on porn, BMEZine]
* [http://www.cindycenter.com/ZakSmithFinal.mp3 Podcast Interview with cIndyCenter.com]
* [http://www.adultmaven.com/articles/4478/1/Interview-with-Zak-Sabbath/Page1.html Interview with Adultmaven]

External links

* [http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/index.html Fredericks & Freiser gallery]
* [http://www.artbook.com/1933045221.html "Zak Smith: Pictures of Girls" from D.A.P.]
* [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933045221 "Zak Smith: Pictures of Girls" on Amazon.com]
* [http://www.barbedwirekiss.com Official Barbed Wire Kiss movie website]
* [http://www.roadofknives.com On the Road of Knives (w/Shawn Cheng and Nicholas Di Genova)]
* [http://www.tinhouse.com/books/catalog_gravitys.htm Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow] Tin House Books