John Connelly Presents (JCP) is proud to announce Joshua Smith’s solo exhibition If By Whiskey.

The title of the exhibition is a rarely used figure of speech, the name of a logical fallacy specific to political discourse. It is an agreement to two conflicting arguments, specifically it is a response to a question designed to cater to the questioner’s unknown stance on the given issue. Using euphemisms to support and dysphemisms to oppose different aspects of the topic, an “If By Whiskey” argument inherently negates itself. The term is contextualized as one enters Smith’s exhibition with a quote taken from its purported origins, a speech given in 1952 by former Mississippi legislator, Judge Noah “Soggy” Sweat. In his infamous speech Judge “Soggy” vehemently agrees with both the Pro and Con camps of a debate regarding a proposed ban on Whiskey. He ends his speech with a hardy, “This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.”

Fallacies are of considerable interest to Smiths work. His investigation of, and fascination with them is rooted in an adamance that subjectivity must be at the forefront of critical discourse. With this in mind he actively engages in creating, in his own words “overtly romantic work, loaded with sentimentality, and optimism.” The politician’s fallacy is a manipulation intended to distract and confuse his constituents. It is not dissimilar from the notion that a utilitarian and political art is an impossibility – with the notion that art has been reduced to a continual reshuffling of vocabulary.

Works in this exhibition include personal artifacts, painting, photography and sculpture. The sculptural works presented by Smith, such as a rack of heirloom jewelry, freestanding bed frame or a large circle of folding chairs are often found, gifted or appropriated objects that honor the naïve yet human tradition of struggling against time and our natural impulse to use objects to preserve memories and moments. His paintings are both conceptual and personal, and here include a string of dealership flags, the General Motors (GM) insignia, and three large gestural abstractions that, coupled with the sculptural work and a single enigmatic Polaroid of a young woman, address issues of intimate and emotional space on both the public and private level.

Joshua Smith was born in Houston, Texas and received a BFA in 2005 from The College for Creative Studies, Detroit MI. He had a solo project exhibition in The Tunnel Room at John Connelly Presents in February 2007 and his works have been shown recently at The Object is the Mirror, Layr Wuestenhagen, Vienna (curated by Max Henry); A New High in Getting Low, Art News Projects, Berlin (curated by John Connelly), Deaf 2, Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris (curated by Peter Coffin); and Attic, Anton Kern Gallery Annex, New York, NY (curated by Erin Somerville). Smith lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.