“Smith is perhaps the least known of the five artists included in Douglas Crimp’s 1977 Artists Space exhibition Pictures. His 2016 photographic edition entitled Night grows out of a large personal archive. A digital scan of his damaged, decades old 35mm slide of an African sculpture he collected both continues and updates the artist’s longstanding investigation into the generative capacity of photographic imagery. In Smith’s hands, the subject, the medium, and even the practice itself are revealed in the production of a new artifact.” – Jen Mergel and Jacob Proctor

Philip Smith is a visual artist from Miami, Fl., where he currently lives and works. After obtaining a BA from Clark University in 1976, Smith began his studio practice in New York City where he resided full-time until 2018. Smith’s work has been widely exhibited in the US and abroad, including the Whitney and Beijing Biennials, and he is represented in the collections of the Whitney Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Art, Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, Perez Art Museum, and Detroit Institute of Art, among others.

Smith’s memoir Walking Through Walls, which details his experience growing up with a father who one day discovers he can talk to the dead and heal the sick, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2008. The book has been optioned for television. Smith is the recipient of the 2016 Artadia Award and is represented by Primary in Miami, Fl.

Philip Smith is the recipient of the 2016 NADA Miami Artadia Award.