Sam Smith: Special Effects

Overview

Sam Smith equals awesome video art. His work defies any complaint about video as a skill-less medium. Special Effects, Smiths second solo show at GRANTPIRRIE, combines geometric sculptural forms and meticulously produced video works. Part critique, part celebration, Special Effects plays on the ways in which digital effects have so come to shape contemporary visual culture.  Film sets, green screens, the flickering light of a home television set, feature alongside a plywood camera lens, in a constant blurring of the distinction between the real and the digital.

Into the Void, one of the video works in the exhibition, is Smith in New York City in search of Yves Klein's paintings and the possible site of Klein's 1960 work Leap into the Void. Although obviously a homage to the seminal artist, Into the Void, quite seriously considers the possibility of video as a medium for extending investigations into spatial and temporal limitations in art, concerns pertinent to Smith's practice.

Beautifully constructed and infinitely watchable, Special Effects is a must see exhibition.

Image: Sam Smith, Into the Void, video still.