jack smith

AVANT-GARDE OPULENCE

An iconic figure of New York’s underground scene, Jack Smith (1932–1989) began creating performances, films, and photographic works in the late 1950s. Through camp performance and baroque improvisation, with no budget, he invented a dazzling vision of himself and his fantasy universe — one populated by exotic idols, queer desire, and theatrical decay — transforming New York’s downtown art scene into his own stage. Working outside all institutional frameworks, Smith blurred the lines between life, performance, and cinema, privileging duration, obsession, and ritual over narrative.

Although his cult films were frequently banned for obscenity, they cemented Smith as one of the founders of American performance art.
His life and work — brutally cut short by AIDS — stood in radical opposition to the art market, rejecting commodification and authorship. Smith relentlessly challenged definitions of gender and sexuality long before such questions entered critical discourse, while aligning with the…