Revision of Julia Kim Smith's portfolio from Thu, 10/26/2017 - 22:54

Anonymous Rage

Alarmed by widening class divisions, Julia Kim Smith collected nearly 30 signs by the homeless and created a shelter-like installation as a statement of anonymous rage. Anonymous Rage may be viewed in different ways. The signs are real expressions of individual need and desperation. The signs are symbols of a society that cannot take care of its own. The signs are art, as valid as any other form, expressing an anonymous rage that cuts to the core and provokes raw emotions that range from compassion, fear, suspicion, and anger. Through their signs, the homeless rebel against anonymity and invoke our vulnerability and mortality as individuals and as a society.

INSTALLATION
Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD, 2006
20th Annual Critics Residency Program, Mapping The Alternative, Curator: Lilly Wei, Independent Curator and Critic, Art in America, ARTnews, Art Asia Pacific

Anonymous Rage

Signs by the homeless, frames, plexiglass, Site: Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD, 2006, 20th Annual Critics Residency Program, Mapping the Alternative, Curator: Lilly Wei, Independent Curator and Critic, Art in America, ARTnews, Art Asia Pacific
Anonymous Rage

Signs by the homeless, frames, plexiglass, Site: Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD, 2006, 20th Annual Critics Residency Program, Mapping the Alternative, Curator: Lilly Wei, Independent Curator and Critic, Art in America, ARTnews, Art Asia Pacific

Cylburn Park

Community–it’s no walk in the park.

Cylburn Park is a text movie in two acts inspired by and edited from a Baltimore neighborhood’s Google Group daily feed and the media’s coverage of it (below). The texts scroll by at a quick pace as if on a teleprompter screen and include lively exchanges over ducks and racial profiling, offering different perspectives from “bitchy” indeed to high-minded and deeply moving. Cylburn Park is relevant today in Baltimore and beyond as communities struggle to keep it together.

BEST SOMETIMES-RACIST GOOGLE GROUP
“For cringe-worthy entertainment, nothing beats reading the daily feed from the Mount Washington Google Group, the provenance for overly educated people with too much time on their hands and axes to grind. Aside from the mundane stuff–free kids’ toys and recommendations for dentists–the group’s archive of bitchy exchanges over whether to allow ducks to live in the community garden nearly brought some residents to blows. The Group’s Greek chorus really pulls out all the stops when teens from the Pimlico neighborhood are spotted in Mount Washington. Accusations of racial profiling are never funny, but you’ve gotta roll your eyes when Mount Washingtonians call each other ‘moron’ and ‘ass’ as they try to sidestep their own prejudices.”
City Paper’s “Best of Baltimore 2013”

SCREENINGS
2018 Maryland Institute College Of Art, Sondheim Prize Semi-Finalist Exhibition, Baltimore, MD
2015 Official Selection Brooklyn Film Festival, Brooklyn, NY

Cylburn Park

Still from film
Cylburn Park

Film, running time: 00:10:44

DIY Juche

DIY Juche offers Swiftian perspectives on the Great Leader’s ideology of juche (“self-reliance”) and of North Korean political realities.

EXHIBITION HISTORY
A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2013
“A.I.R. National & International Exhibition,” Curator: Jill Conner, Founder, AS | ARTISTS STUDIOS; Independent Critic and Curator; New York Editor, Whitehot Magazine

Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC, 2013
“SELECT Auction Gala And Exhibition,” Curator: Lawrence Waung, Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, Washington, DC

PRESS
The Washington Post, Mark Jenkins, “A Glimpse Of What Washington Project For Arts Auction Gala Has In Store,” March 2013

DIY Juche: Abacus For Political Prison Camp (200,000 prisoners)

Balsa wood, pony beads, felt, 4.5 x 10 x 0.5"
DIY Juche: Barbwire Fruit Bowl

Barbwire, melon, 14" diameter
DIY Juche: Rice Missile Ornaments

Rice, polyurethane resin, 5 x 1 (diameter)"
DIY Juche: Solar-Powered Kimchi Jar Nightlight

Kimchi jar, solar-powered LED light, archival pigment print on translucent paper

Domesticated Beauty

Domesticated Beauty challenges the line between art and craft and creates quietly subversive domestic objects that reference art history and the contemporary DIY craft movement, including Damien Hirst, Tang Dynasty sculpture, Méret Oppenheim, Janine Antoni, and Martha Stewart.

The works exist both as physical objects and as photographs of the physical objects.

EXHIBITION HISTORY
A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2015
“Transformed Viewpoints,” A.I.R. National & International Exhibition, Curator: Charlotta Kotik, Curator Emerita of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum

“A.I.R. ReFreshed”
The Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 2015
Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 2015
Governors Island, New York, NY, 2015

Domesticated Beauty: For The Love Of Wonder (Day 3)

Wonder Bread / archival pigment print, 7.5 x 5 x 4” / 14 x 14”
Domesticated Beauty: Battleship In A Crack Vial

Toy battleship, baking soda, sugar, vial / archival pigment print, 2.75 x 0.75 (diameter)” / 14 x 14”
Domesticated Beauty: Orange Tang

Tang reproductions, spray paint / archival pigment print, Variable sizes / 14 x 14”
Domesticated Beauty: Welcome

Faux fur, wreath frame / archival pigment print, 4 x 14 (diameter)” /14 x 14”
Domesticated Beauty: Light And Lather

Beeswax, soap / archival pigment print, 5.5 x 1 (diameter)” / 14 x 14”

Grand Teton

Dedicated to all immigrants and refugees

Grand Teton is a video portrait of a first-generation Korean-American family in transition, as Julia Kim Smith films her family assembling once again for a group photo in the same spot where they had stood 35 years earlier in Grand Teton National Park. Through juxtaposition of photography and video, Smith documents the process of assimilation and challenges those racial and cultural boundaries of what it means to be “American.”

“A stunning video portrait of a first-generation Korean-American family. Director Julia Kim Smith films her family assembling for a group photograph in the same spot in Grand Teton National Park where 35 years earlier they stood for the same portrait. That a story can be told in barely five minutes of a static shot of two sisters and their mom, and range in emotion from whimsy to a mother’s tears is remarkable. A director’s love letter to her family.”
Mick Muirfield, Film Programmer, Slamdance Film Festival

SELECTED SCREENINGS
2009 A.I.R. Gallery, A.I.R. Gallery 8th Biennial, Brooklyn, NY
Curator: Lilly Wei, Independent Curator and Critic, Art in America, ARTnews, Art Asia Pacific

2009 Official Selection Slamdance Film Festival, Park City, UT
2009 Slamdance On The Road: The Engine Collision Festival, Studio 1636, Hollywood, CA with David Lynch

2009 Official Selection Center for Asian American Media: San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, CA

2009 Official Selection Maryland Film Festival, Opening Night Selection with Bobcat Goldthwait

Grand Teton

Film, running time: 00:04:01
Grand Teton

Still from film

North Korea In Emoji

A simple, emoji video of what is going down in North Korea for those who find the news coverage too onerous to follow

North Korea In Emoji

Film, running time: 00:01:29
North Korea In Emoji

Still from film

The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore (Are U Connected?)

Featuring the genre-busting talent of James Nasty and TT the Artist, The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore offers a punny and nuanced view of Baltimore neighborhoods in a short film edited from iPhone screenshots of Wi-Fi network names. The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore poses this challenge: Are we connected?

This project is supported in part by a Rubys Artist Project Grant. The Rubys Artist Project Grants were conceived and initiated with start-up funding from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation and are a program of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.

PRODUCTION NOTE
“Baltimore is the world. The world is Baltimore.”
Your Face In Mine, Jess Row

In the wake of the Freddie Gray uprising, I was traveling around Baltimore, lost and looking for a Wi-Fi connection, and was fascinated by the Wi-Fi network names that came up on my phone. I started taking screenshots which I edited into a short film. Thanks to a Rubys Artist Grant, I was able to remaster the film for projection on the big screen and combine forces with James Nasty and TT the Artist to produce an original soundtrack for the film, “Are U Connected?”–both a question and a challenge.
— Julia Kim Smith, Director

SCREENINGS
2022 A.I.R. Gallery, A.I.R. Currents: Identity Politics, Brooklyn, NY
Curators: Christian Camacho-Light and Roxana Fabius

2017 Official Selection Slamdance Film Festival, Park City, UT
2017 Official Selection Cinequest Film Festival, San Jose, CA
2017 Official Selection Calgary Underground Film Festival, Calgary, Canada
2017 Maryland Institute College Of Art, Sondheim Prize Semi-Finalist Exhibition, Baltimore, MD
Vimeo Curated Collection: Comedy

PRESS
We Are Moving Stories, Carmela Baranowska, “Slamdance - The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore,” January 2017
Deadline Hollywood, Diana Lodderhose, Dominic Patten, “Slamdance 2017 Unveils Special Screenings, Beyond & Shorts Program,” December 2016
Rubys Media And Performing Arts Grantees 2016, Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance
kottke.org, Jason Kottke, “The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore,” November 2015 (The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore rough cut)
Good Morning Silicon Valley, Levi Sumagaysay, “Off Topic,” November 2015 (The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore rough cut)
Holy Kaw, Guy Kawasaki, “Mapping Baltimore By Wifi Names,” November 2015 (The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore rough cut)
Baltimore Fishbowl, Rachel Monroe, “Lifeline: Wu Tang LAN And Other Great Wifi Network Names In Baltimore,” November 2015 (The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore rough cut)

The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore (Are U Connected?)

2022 A.I.R. Gallery, A.I.R. Currents: Identity Politics, Brooklyn, NY; 2017 Official Selection Slamdance Film Festival–Featuring the genre-busting talent of James Nasty and TT the Artist, The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore offers a punny and nuanced view of Baltimore neighborhoods in a short film edited from iPhone screenshots of Wi-Fi network names. The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore poses this challenge: Are we connected?
The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore: Charles Village

Still from film
The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore: Hampden

Still from film
The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore: Sandtown-Winchester

Still from film

Why

Julia Kim Smith utilizes Google’s search engine's autocomplete feature to find out what people are wondering about her, an Asian woman, and discovers unsettling abstractions, truths, fallacies, desires, and fears about all of us. Why is a compilation of 24 of the search engine results.

SELECTED SCREENINGS
2018 Maryland Institute College Of Art, Sondheim Prize Semi-Finalist Exhibition, Baltimore, MD
2017 Feminist Art Conference, OCAD University, Toronto, Canada
2016 Gold + Beton, Exquisit Corpse, Cologne, Germany
2015 Fuse Art Space, Exquisite Corpse, Bradford, UK
Curator: Sarah Faraday
Exhibiting Artists: Anastasia Vepreva, Evelin Stermitz, Faith Holland, Julia Kim Smith, Kate Durbin, Lacie Garnes, Poppy Jackson, Rupi Kaur, Sarah Faraday, Sheena Patel, Sue Williams

2014-2015 Institute for Women and Art, Rutgers University, MTV: Momentum Technology Video and Momentum: Women/Art/Technology, New Brunswick, NJ

2014 Official Selection Center For Asian American Media CAAMFest, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, CA
2013 DUMBO Arts Festival, Brooklyn, NY

2013 Washington Project for the Arts, Pepco Edison Place Gallery, Experimental Media 2013: Cyber In Securities, Washington, DC
Curator: Lisa Moren, Professor of Visual Art, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Exhibiting Artists: Birgit Bachler, Walter Langelaar, Owen Mundy, and Tim Schwartz; Channel TWo (CH2): Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook, with Jesus Duran; Heather Dewey-Hagborg; Hasan Elahi; The Force of Freedom with Dave Young; Taylor Hokanson; Ricarda McDonald and Donna Szoke; Lexie Mountain; Preemptive Media: Beatriz de Costa, Jamie Schulte and Brooke Singer; David Rokeby; Julia Kim Smith; WhiteFeather

2013 Baltimore Artscape, Slippage, Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, Towson, MD
Curator: Daniel Belasco, Curator, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York

PUBLICATION
Beaver The Exhibition The Book, 2020
Forward by Kristen J. Sollée, Editor: Naomi Elena Ramirez

PRESS
Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus, Lisa Moren, “Algorithmic Pollution: Artists Working With Dataveillance And Societies Of Control,” October 2017
Feminist Art Conference, Valérie Frappier, “Meet The Artists FAC 2017: Julia Kim Smith,” December 2016
Paper Magazine, Layne Weiss, “Exquisite Corpse: Inside Germany’s Powerful Feminist Exhibit,” February 2016
Dazed Digital, UK, Sooanne Berner, “After Cologne Sexual Attacks, Art Show Champions Women,” January 2016
artnet News, Sarah Hyde, “Cologne Art Show Celebrates Women In The Wake Of Attacks,” January 2016
this is tomorrow, UK, Alice Miller, “Exquisite Corpse,” September 2015
Corridor8, UK, Elspeth Mitchell, “Review: Exquisite Corpse, Fuse Art Space,” August 2015
The Washington Post, Mark Jenkins, “Fall Critics’ Picks: Gallery Exhibits,” September 2013
Washington Project for the Arts, Lisa Moren, “Experimental Media 2013: Cyber In Securities,” September 2013
Angry Asian Man, Phil Yu, “Julia Kim Smith Asks Google Why,” March 2013

Why

Film, running time: 00:02:44
Why

Still from film
Washington Project for the Arts Experimental Media 2013: Cyber In Securities

“This knowledge engine was at play when the artist Julia Kim Smith took to Google in 2013 [2012] in order to produce the 1 min. video loop titled Why?. Before Kim Smith finished typing her question “why do asian women...?” the knowledge engine kicked-in, anticipating her possible thoughts: “like black men”, “age well”, “wear masks” and so on. These results are all the more disturbing because there is no human intervention in the algorithm at Google that generates these results, as there is when they censor pornographic and violent words. According to algorithms, a common denominator of people (a type of shared consciousness) are privately asking Google these questions about Asian women more than they are asking anything else. Google reads the action of both individuals and collective social and geographic groups in order to anticipate user’s intentions when they type.

With Banksy

Street artist Banksy pulls off no small feat by being both the anonymous artist and the famous artist at the same time. But by being anonymous, he is like Virginia Woolf’s anonymous woman—“Anonymous was a woman.”—and anyone can appropriate his identity. Which is exactly what Julia Kim Smith does in her photo project With Banksy. She heeds Banksy’s edict (and Picasso’s: “The Bad Artists Imitate, The Great Artists Steal”), appropriates his hooded identity, and places him and his work in her own scenarios. In a series of photographs that challenge gender and celebrity roles, “Banksy” lounges front and center while Smith performs daily chores. But Smith is more than just the accommodating hostess, with “Banksy” she creates new social memes and street art for the internet.

EXHIBITION
Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India 2016-2017
Cooperative Consciousness: A.I.R. Artists At Kochi, Curators: Kathryn Myers, Jayanthi Moorthy
A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2014
Liminal Communities, A.I.R. National & International Exhibition, Curator: Lucy Li, Independent Curator and Critic, New York, NY

Platoon Kunsthalle, Seoul, South Korea, 2011
At Platoon With Banksy

PRESS
Korean American Story, Grace Jahng Lee, “Portrait Of Artist Julia Kim Smith,” May 2014
Urbanite, Cara Ober, “Great Artists Steal,” November 2011
Oasis Magazine, Saudi Arabia, “At Home With Banksy,” Autumn 2011
Baltimore Magazine, John Lewis, “Life Changing Art: With Banksy in Korea,” September 2011
Shortlist, UK, “Banksy In The House,” July 2011
Juxtapoz, “Julia Kim Smith: At Home With Banksy Series,” July 2011
GQ, The GQ Eye, “Banksy, Beefrolls And LSD,” July 2011
Animal, Marina Galperina, “Banksy Is Her Homebody,” July 2011
Hypebeast, Douglas Brundage, “At Home With Banksy By Julia Kim Smith,” July 2011
Kidrobot KRonikle, “A Day In The Life Of Banksy,” July 2011
Baltimore Fishbowl, Betsy Boyd, “Provocative New Resident Artist Julia Kim Smith,” June 2011
Angry Asian Man, Phil Yu, “Julia Kim Smith Is Hanging With Banksy,” June 2011
Happy Famous Artists, “Julia Kim Smith With Banksy,” June 2011

With Banksy: Great Artists Steal

Web-based and archival pigment print, 12 x 18"
With Banksy: Charlie Burn

Web-based and archival pigment print, 12 x 18"
With Banksy: Tesco Value Petrol Bomb

Web-based and archival pigment print, 12 x 18"
With Banksy: Keep It Tidy

Web-based and archival pigment print, 12 x 18"

Baltimore, Actually, I like it.

Think locally, act locally.

Sticker, T-shirt, and bookmark made in Baltimore: created and designed by Julia Kim Smith, printed by Momentum and Indigo Ink, and sold exclusively at Atomic Books and Sideshow at The American Visionary Art Museum. Every sticker, T-shirt, and bookmark makes an impact: We donate 100% of profits to the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

The limited edition postcard, commissioned by the The Creative Alliance and printed by Typecast Press, is available in an edition of 200, each signed and numbered by the artist. Text on front reads “Baltimore: Actually, I like it.”; text on back reads “Dearest_______,” to be completed by the sender.

PRESS
Baltimore: Actually, I like it. spotted in novels: John Waters’ Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance!, 2022, and Matthew Norman’s Charm City Rocks: A Love Story, 2023
Duff Goldman Instagram feed, July 27 2019
Duff Goldman Instagram feed, March 12 2019
Baltimore Creatives Instagram feed, January 3, 2019
American Visionary Art Museum Instagram feed

“A trending unofficial civic slogan declares ‘Baltimore: Actually, I Like It,’ which best captures the mix of resignation and defensiveness that comes from residing in a place long synonymous with what’s wrong with American cities. This may never be a Portlandia-style urban playground, but the raggedy pleasures of Baltimore living are real and durable, and can be found no where else. That’s why we’re here, and why we stay, even though sometimes we all feel like tearing the place down.”
Grist, David Dudley, “Why Baltimore is fighting for its life, again,” April 2015

Baltimore: Actually, I like it.

Weather-resistant vinyl sticker, 3 x 9" (NEW! Small, 2 x 7" sticker now at Atomic Books!)
Baltimore: Actually, I like it.

T-shirt—White Plastisol ink screen printed on 100% cotton, Size: XS-XXXL, Printer: Momentum
Baltimore, Actually, I like it.

Bookmark—Black ink on Mohawk Superfine FSC Mix, Ultra White, Eggshell 120# cover, 2 x 7", Press: Indigo Ink
Baltimore: Actually, I like it.

Limited edition postcard—Foil-stamped, triplexed Keaykolour 111# cover and Rising Museum Board, with edge painting and gray envelope (not shown), 6 x 4.25 x 0.15" Edition of 200 signed and number by artist, Press: Mary Mashburn, Typecast Press
Baltimore: Actually, I like it.

Limited edition postcard—Foil-stamped, triplexed Keaykolour 111# cover and Rising Museum Board, with edge painting and gray envelope (not shown), 6 x 4.25 x 0.15" Edition of 200 signed and number by artist, Press: Mary Mashburn, Typecast Press