Barbara T. Smith, Guest Speaker for “Have You Seen My Privacy”

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Barbara T. Smith, Legendary Performance Artist who emerged during California’s Contemporary Art Movement of the 60s and 70s,  will grace the 18th Street Gallery with her presence for Richard Newton’s Have You Seen My Privacy exhibition show.

Barbara T. Smith lives in Venice, California and is a pioneer performance artist. Trained as a visual artist, Smith began her body-oriented work in 1965. By ’68 she was creating powerful transformational performances and has continued to the present. The work often externalizes her inner psychic material in mythic rituals, based on issues of gender, spirituality, and sexuality and are integrated with larger cosmic laws and structures. Many pieces are intimate, personal and participatory often extending over many days. In addition to her performances, she has since 1964 produced collages, prints, paintings, drawings and sculptures frequently related to her performances. Smith has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad and has taught and given lectures at universities and art institutions around the world. A recipient of several awards and grants, Smith was also a founding member of many alternative spaces in L. A. Included in the recent show of LA artists at the Pompidou in Paris, and the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution show first at MOCA, later at PS1 in New York, she is currently writing a book about her early performance career.