Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey (MARCO), 2020. Farsa y Artificio Installation view.
Melanie Smith and Tanya Barson in discussion at Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), 2018. Farsa y Artificio opening.
Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey (MARCO), 2020. Farsa y Artificio Installation view.
Melanie Smith Studio, Mexico City. 2019.
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), 2018. Farsa y Artificio Installation view.
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), 2018. Opening night of solo exhibition Farsa y Artificio.
Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey (MARCO), 2020. Farsa y Artificio Installation view.
MELANIE SMITH (b. 1965, England)
“In general, both in painting and film, I am searching for an unstable, undefined ground that creates potentials. … It is always a question of following various lines of research that for me coincide at my sites of interest and result in these layers of associations and visual encounters.”
Born in Poole, England, Melanie Smith received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Reading, where she studied painting. In 1989, she moved to Mexico City, joining an international community of artists and writers there. Her work was included in the first exhibition of installation art in Mexico, curated by Guillermo Santamarina at the Museum of the Ex-Convento de los Leones. Since then, the city has played an important role in her work; she has produced installations, videos, films, photographs, and paintings in which she considers Mexico City’s density of population and structures, its production of detritus, and its endless entropy and reconstruction. These concerns are balanced by Smith’s interest in the legacies of modernism and post-avant-garde movements as they manifest themselves in Latin America.
In her 2002 video, Spiral City, Smith filmed one of Mexico City’s suburbs from a helicopter as it flew in a widening spiral over the densely gridded urban space. The video takes Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty as a referent, and draws from the unique topography and dramatic immensity of Mexico City. In other projects, she has focused upon the legacies of Surrealism in the Americas. Writing about Smith’s work, art historian Dawn Ades describes the artist’s relationship to modernity and the present: “There is nothing sentimental about Smith’s pursuit of the modern spectacle in Mexico… No reference to history and the weight of the past. This is modernity of a shattered, intimate kind, already old, past its sell-by date, but always still to happen.”
2020-2021 2019
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Melanie Smith. Farsa y Artificio - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico Melanie Smith, Saint Leger Centre d´Art Contemporain, Pougues-les-Eaux, France, Sept. 14 - Dec. 31 Melanie Smith. Farsa y Artificio - Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico and Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City, Mexico |
2018
| Melanie Smith. Farsa y Artificio - Museu D’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain |
2017 | Obscuridades bucólicas, La Tallera, Cuernavaca, Mexico. |
| Proyecto Paralelo, Mexico City, Mexico |
| Atlas De Ausencias, Caja Negra, Madrid, Spain |
2016 | Abandoned Bodies and Uncertain Futures, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA. |
| Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico |
2015 | Fordlandia, LULU, Mexico City, Mexico |
| Melanie Smith, Maps, mud and mundo(s), Galería Proyecto Paralelo, Mexico City, Mexico. |
| Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands |
2014 | Fordlandia, Galería Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Melanie Smith, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX, USA |
| Green is the Colour, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA |
| Melanie Smith, Milton Keynes Gallery, Buckinghamshire, UK |
| Melanie Smith, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania |
2013 | Irreversible/ Illegible /Unstable, Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico |
| Xilitla, FLORA ars+natura, Bogota, Colombia. |
2012 | Melanie Smith, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Switzerland |
| Short Circuit, Villa Merkel, Esslingen, Germany (with exhibition catalogue) |
| Melanie Smith, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Brazil |
2011 | Wall Eyed, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Red Square Impossible Pink, Mexican Pavilion, 54th International Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy |
| Bulto, Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima, Peru (with exhibition catalogue) |
2010 | Xilitla, Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City, Mexico |
2009 | Spiral City & Other Vicarious Pleasures, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, USA |
2008 | Parres Trilogy, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami Beach, FL, USA |
| Resiste, Galería Alberto Sendrós, Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Grey (negative) rectangle on white background, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Switzerland |
| Urban Views, Patrick Painter Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA |
2007 | Melanie Smith: Spiral City & Other Vicarious Pleasures, The Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Beldar, Lakewood, CO, USA |
| Parres, Galería OMR, Mexico City, Mexico (in collaboration with Rafael Ortega) |
2006 | Spiral City & Other Vicarious Pleasures, Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes, MUCA Campus, Mexico City, Mexico (with exhibition catalogue) |
| Parres Trilogy, Art Now, Tate Britain, London, UK |
| Inmaterialidad sensible, Galerías del Bosque y Nacho López, Mexico |
2005 | Parres Trilogy, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Switzerland |
2004 | Cerca Series: Melanie Smith, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA, USA |
| Six Steps to the Unpredictable, Mark Quint Contemporary, La Jolla, CA, USA |
2003 | Seis Pasos Hacia la Realidad, 2002 and Untitled (works with no sense) 2003, Galería OMR, Mexico City, Mexico (in collaboration with Rafael Ortega) |
| Marco Noire Contemporary Art, San Sebastiano, Italy |
2002 | Seis Pasos Hacia la Abstracción, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Switzerland |
| Seis Pasos Hacia la Realidad, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City, Mexico (in collaboration with Rafael Ortega) |
2001 | 100% acrílico, Galería OMR, Mexico City, Mexico |
| Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Switzerland |
1997 | Orange Lush, Instituto Anglo Mexicano de Cultura, Mexico City, Mexico (with exhibition catalogue) |
1996 | Obra reciente: 1916-1996, Galería OMR, Mexico City, Mexico |
| Installation, Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA |
| Dream spots: Taxqueña bus station, Sala Díaz, San Antonio, TX, USA |
1994 | En la punta de mi lengua, Galería OMR, Mexico City, Mexico |
1992 | L’Escaut, Brussels, Belgium |
1989 | Salón de Los Aztecas, Mexico City, Mexico |
Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, Irvine, CA, USA
Arte Contemporáneo en Valencia, Spain
British Council, London, England
The Bruce and Diane Halle Collection, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Centro Cultural Muros, Madrid, Spain
Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim, Braumadinho, Brazil
Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL, USA
Colección Isabel y Agustín Coppel, Mexico City, Mexico
Cruz Rojas, Mexico City, Mexico
Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zürich, Switzerland
ESSL Collection, Klosterneuburg, Austria
EVN Collection, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria
Fomento Cultural Bancomer, Tamaulipas, Mexico
Fundación ARCO, Madrid, Spain
Fundación BBVA Bancomer, Mexico City, Mexico
Fundación Colección Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico
Fundación Televisa, Mexico City, Mexico
Fundación Vergel, Cuernavaca, Mexico
Grupo de los Dieciséis, Mexico City, Mexico
Inhotim Brazil, Brumadinho, Brazil
Institut Valencià d'Art Moderne, Valencia, Spain
Ivor Braka Gallery, London, UK
Jerry Speyer Collection, New York, NY, USA
Lucille & Ronald Neeley Foundation, San Diego, CA, USA
Marco Noire Contemporary Art, Torino, Italy
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX, USA
Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain
Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru
Museo de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo de Santander y Cantabria, Spain
Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico
Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico
Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico
Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte, Mexico City, Mexico
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY, USA
Nara Roesler Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
Peter Kilchmann Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland
Quint Contemporary, La Jolla, CA, USA
Tate Modern, London, UK
Villa Merkel, Esslingen, Germany
Vergel Foundation, New York, NY, USA
Zabludowicz Collection, London, England
The 10th edition of Liverpool Biennial, the largest festival of contemporary visual art in the UK, opens to the public on Saturday 14 July 2018 marking its 20th anniversary with exhibitions, performances, film screenings, family events and talks. The Biennial runs for 15 weeks until 28 October 2018 across Liverpool’s public spaces, galleries, museums, civic buildings and online.
