BravinLee programs is very pleased to present a new work on paper by Guy Richards Smit.

Mr. Smit mines his brooding absurdism as a performance artist, front man, artist and filmmaker. In his many guises, Mr. Smit is a provocateur with the heart of Jean Seberg and the soul of Pat Cooper. Over a decade ago, merely playing one of his Grossmalerman videos had the effect of ending a dinner party at John Post Lee’s apartment—before the main course was served. Other attempts by Mr. Lee to show Mr. Smit’s reel to small groups of art world folks had similarly chilling effects. Years later, after Mr. Smit’s reputation had grown, one of the guests at the dinner party apologized for not appreciating and understanding his significance. True story.

The work in this show comes out of his “New York Times front page ” series. As an artist Smit has always loved telling stories and the form of the New York Times front page allows him to indulge his grisly dark humor and harshly political side with comic visuals and the factual banality of “the news.” Here, for the first time, he moves on from the front page to produce the entire New York Times creating, ultimately a sculptural monument to the dead act of newspaper reading. An internal monologue and a running commentary on issues large and small, public and private. You could almost swear the pages were tear stained.

Guy Richards Smit’s work has been seen at biennials in Havana and Valencia and at ARCOMadrid in 2008 and Dublin Contemporary in 2011. Solo exhibitions include Grossmalerman! Schroeder Romero & Shredder, New York, USA 2011; Fred [London] Ltd., London, UK 2009; Nausea 2, Premier Series, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA 2004; QED, Los Angeles, CA in 2006. He has received awards including the Penny McCall Foundation Award in 2004.