Alexis Smith

My goodness, this beautiful book drew venom from the reviewer at Library Journal back in 1992. Paula Frosch wrote, "the art seems less witty than clever, less creative than contrived, and the artist as brittle as the images. Along with the essay by Armstrong, the work contains a fictional biography, a patchwork of myth and jargon, an exhibition history, and a lengthy bibliography. As an example of self-promotion, this probably belongs on the shelves along with many other catalogs of a similar genre. However, it is by no means an essential purchase in times of budgetary cuts." Pretty harsh that part about an exercise in self-promotion. I can only imagine what she would say today of Alexis Smith! In part this is because of Smith's deep-seated California-ness, and her job in the library at New York's Metropolitan Museum predisposed Ms. Frosch into thinking of Smith as a, well, a poseur. The tradition of funk-collage-assemblage to which she belongs has its origins, perhaps, in the European inspired surrealism of Joseph Cornell's "Utopia Parkway," and yet here in the West it has really taken shape, and many of the most inspired artists of Smith's generation have mixed conceptualism with humor with collage to create some interesting work. This large scale book, the gift of a generous friend to me at Christmastime, (hi Alvin!) is a perfect way to celebrate the career of an artist about whom you don't seem to hear quite as much about as back in the day when the Whitney was doing this huge retrospective of her work and she was planning her Snake Path up the steep majestic hill at the University of California in San Diego, that leads to the steps of the Central Library there. Like many artists, she has seized upon some common tropes and made them her own through skillful manipulation, rather like the poet Amy Gerstler with whom she has collaborated and who provides the biography of Smith at the back of this volume. In the case of Alexis Smith, we see playing cards all the time, playing cards and snakes, and also stars. When I think of her work I think of an old time Western, with gamblers playing poker in the front room of the saloon, and out on the range, a snake creeps towards the bound Gregory Peck spreadeagled in the sun. At night a blanket of stars covers the campground of the cowboys and ranchhands. One thing the book doesn't explain is how the actress Alexis Smith felt about this younger upstart who "appropriated" her name, and sometimes her image. (She was actually born Patti Smith, but I guess that wouldn't do either!) The statuesque Titian haired Warner Brothers star was still alive, if just barely, when this book went into production, and we see one of the works labelled as being "from the collection of the actress Alexis Smith," so my guess is she didn't mind the implied flattery of having someone change their name to match your own, but I always think that's a little weird and would have liked more explanation.