ROWAN SMITH
If you get far enough away, you’ll be on your way back home
Solo Exhibition
03 - 26 September 2009
OPENING - Thursday 03 September 18h30
Rowan Smith’s second solo exhibition at Whatiftheworld, If You Get Far Enough Away You’ll Be On Your Way Back Home, considers the effect that space flight and expansion has had, and continues to have, on the public imagination. His work reminds us that it was not the close-up view of the surface of the moon that was the pivotal moment of space exploration, but rather the distant view of the earth, as small, whole and distant, that has left its mark on the human psyche.
Although almost entirely devoid of the expected iconography of space travel, Smith’s latest body of work offers us a view of what space travel has meant for humankind, articulating the gaps between past and a projected future, earth and the moon, then and now; and reminding us of everything that we have had to leave behind as we venture onward towards a brave new world.
A lonely, though beautiful and thought provoking exhibition, If You Get Far Enough Away You’ll Be On Your Way Back Home is a fitting and worthy sequel to Smith’s highly successful debut, Future Shock Lost.
ABOUT ROWAN SMITH
Born in 1983 in Cape Town, South Africa. Smith completed his BA in Fine Art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2007, with a body of work for which he was awarded the Michealis Prize for top graduate. He has appeared in a number of group exhibitions, most recently Objects of the Revolution presented by Dominique Fiat Galerie in Paris. In 2008, Smith presented his debut solo show, Future Shock Lost at Whatiftheworld to both critical and public acclaim; with the artist being hailed as one of the country’s ‘Bright Young Things’ in the continent’s leading art publication Art South Africa Magazine. The artist’s work is also included in the prestigious Hollard Collection in Johannesburg.
Click here for more info about Rowan Smith
Click here to read some comments on the exhibition by Paul Edmunds on Artthrob
