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Art

Different Strokes for Jane, or Ekphrasis on Alexis

Pathetic, just pathetic, to expect Strangers to know your name I guess Such is the price of fame

Ben La Rocco

Ben La Rocco

— 3 min read
Alexis Smith, “It’s Up to You” (2008), mixed media, 21 1/2 x 27 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches (all images courtesy the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York) (click to enlarge)

On the occasion of viewing Alexis Smith at Garth Greenan Gallery (October 22–December 5, 2015).

Pathetic, just pathetic, to expect
Strangers to know your name I guess
Such is the price of fame

Alexis Smith, “Slice of Life” (2009), mixed media, 23 x 22 3/4 inches

Loraine, it’s up to you
Alexis Smith what’s this
Sad confluence of solitudes

Alexis Smith, “Vermeer Diptych” (2013), mixed media, 21 1/2 x 17 1/4 x 15 inches (click to enlarge)

A Vermeer diptych that’s split
But did you also feel that way
Say, couldn’t it be an image war

Alexis Smith, “Strangelove” (2004), mixed media, 30 1/8 x 24 1/4 x 3 1/8 inches

You fought yourself for anonymity
Easy to kill it when you live at home with mother
The generation gap – draw me a map

Alexis Smith, “High Society” (2013), mixed media, 30 x 21 3/4 inches

Family values: easy to murder the other
Anger walking back and forth in a
Small train looks in, sees, pees

Alexis Smith, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (2013), mixed media, 10 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches

Maybe, sucks in his lip, seer-up, paces
Jester, we see each other across the threshold
Maybe, rap but wind up black and blue ways

Alexis Smith, “Riches Have Wings” (2002), mixed media, 26 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches

Of moving back
Down lover’s lane
Riches have wings

Alexis Smith, “Lonesome Cowboy” (2002), mixed media, 54 1/4 x 40 1/2 x 3 inches

These are found things

Lonesome cowboy
You’re a Kerouac haiku
Just a slice of life but whose

Jester
Alexis Smith, “Jester” (2013), mixed media, 25 x 18 inches

Calamity Jack of  you don’t know Dick
Diamonds stairway to the stars
A bit like Magritte

Alexis Smith, “Kerouac Haiku” (1994), mixed media, 27 3/4 x 32 7/8 x 2 3/4 inches (click to enlarge)

This is how things exist, folks
The adventures of Huck Finn in high society
Or the Queen of Hearts for Jane’s strange love

Alexis Smith continues at Garth Greenan Gallery (529 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) thorugh December 5.