Rowan Smith
Available Works
About
Rowan Smith was born in 1983 in Cape Town, South Africa and has been hailed as one of the country’s ‘Bright Young Things’ by Art South Africa, the continent’s leading art publication. Smith completed his BA in Fine Art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2007 (winning the Michaelis Prize for top graduate) and received his MFA degree at the California Institute of the Arts in 2012. Upon graduating he was awarded the prestigious Joan Mitchell MFA Grant. Smith presented his acclaimed debut solo exhibition Future Shock Lost at WHATIFTHEWORLD in 2008, followed by If You Get Far Enough Away, You’ll Be On Your Way Home in 2009, No Everything in 2014 and Chamber of Mines, in collaboration with Xhanti Zwelendaba, in 2016. He has also exhibited a solo presentation with the gallery at VOLTA NY in 2012. Smith has appeared in a number of group exhibitions both locally and internationally, including Cape to Tehran at Gallery MOMO in Cape Town (2018); Broken English at the Tyburn Gallery in London (2015); Green Flower Street at the Istanbul Off Biennial (2013); COME ON YOU FUCKERS (in collaboration with Ingrid Lee) at The Wulf in Los Angeles (2012); Ampersand at the Daimler Contemporary in Berlin (2010) and Objects of Revolution at Dominique Fiat Gallery in Paris (2009). The artist’s work is included in the Hollard Collection in Johannesburg.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Rowan Smith’s work takes the form of a multidisciplinary semiotic investigation into the ways in which cultural signs and signifiers can be read as artefacts. He examines how the meaning embedded in these artefacts fluctuates (and frequently deteriorates) in relation to ever-shifting sociopolitical contexts; often assuming a self-critical position which responds to his locality. Most recently, Smith has focussed this lens on the complexities and contradictions of post-apartheid South Africa in terms of class, capitalist economy, nationalism, globalisation and the relationship between the pervasive legacy of the past and the undefined present. He examines these concepts through acts of appropriation, defacement, destruction and reparation. By visualising the destruction of a society in this way, he intends to highlight the flaws embedded in its underlying structures that they may be acknowledged and confronted. Crucially, the physical materiality of the works is as important to his investigation as the concepts informing them; the two work in tandem in order to extrapolate the themes inherent to the artwork.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
| 2023 | A Deixis in Folds - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| 2018 | Dead Centre - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| 2016 | Chamber of Mines - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| 2014 | No Everything - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| 2012 | VOLTA NY, New York City, New York, USA |
| Where There Is Smoke, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California, USA | |
| 2011 | How Are You All Feeling Tonight?, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California, USA |
| 2009 | If You Get Far Enough Away, Youʼll Be On Your Way Back Home, WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery & Co-Op Gallery, Johannesburg |
| 2008 | Future Shock Lost, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
Selected Group Exhibitions
| 2022 | Seeds of the Fig - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| 2018 | Cape to Tehran, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town |
| 2017 | WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| 2016 | Negative Space - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| 2015 | Foreign Bodies - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| Broken English, Tyburn Gallery, London | |
| 2014 | Uncertain Terms - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| Bazaar, Atlantic House, Cape Town | |
| 2013 | Green Flower Street, Istanbul Off Biennial, Istanbul |
| FNB Johannesburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa | |
| Positive Tension - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town | |
| Speak Now, Deering Estate, Miami, Florida | |
| 2012 | Closer, Spinello Projects, Miami, Florida |
| "COME ON YOU FUCKERS", The Wulf, Los Angeles | |
| 2011 | Hegemony is a Hard Word to Pronounce, Main Gallery, California Institute of the Arts |
| We Got Next, Untitled Art Projects, Los Angeles | |
| Circulate, Exchange: nugget and gravy, White Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles | |
| Chain Letter, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles | |
| 2010 | Ampersand: A Dialogue of contemporary art from South Africa & the Daimler Art Collection, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany |
| Twenty: South African Sculpture of the last two decades, Nirox Sculpture Park, Johannesburg | |
| Ways of Seeing, ORE Gallery, Cape Town | |
| 2009 | Holiday, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| Wood, Association for Visual Arts (AVA), Cape Town | |
| Social Pattern, Association for Visual Arts (AVA), Cape Town | |
| Printing Money, South African Print Gallery, Cape Town | |
| Objects of Revolution, Dominique Fiat Gallery, Paris, France | |
| 2008 | Prints and Editions, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
| Greatest Hits 2007, Association for Visual Arts (AVA), Cape Town | |
| 2007 | 3C - Committee and Critics Choice, Association for Visual Arts (AVA), Cape Town |
| Creatures Great and Small, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town | |
| Choice Assortment, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town | |
| Not Yet Famous: Nobody Likes Nothing, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
Art Fairs
| Miart 2024 |
| Artissima 2023 |
| Cape Town Art Fair 2024 |
Permanent Collections
Hollard Collection, Johannesburg