Lucien Smith: A Clean Sweep

The Suzanne Geiss Company
76 Grand Street
New York, NY

Motivated by the transformations of downtown New York during the reign of former mayor Rudolf Giuliani, Lucien Smith assumed the task of documenting the relics of a bygone New York. Through a series of categorical Polaroids and a sculptural installation, Smith remembers the once-raw cityscape that was smoothed in favor of gentrification.

 The main gallery featured a legion of freestanding brooms that inspired contradictory allusions. When grouped together, they are magicked into an anthropomorphized army. On the other hand, they recall the daily dirt and purge of the city. Sense-of-place ready-mades, the brooms were collected by Smith and his friends off the streets as they walked to the studio each morning. In forty-three sleeves of nine Polaroids each, Smith documents New York with scientific efficiency. With a biologist’s or baseball card collector’s enthusiasm for organization and subtle differentiation, the functional objects and natural adornments of New York City’s streets are categorized. Trashcans, crosswalks, park signs, bodegas and piles of slush take on new importance when grouped together with their peer genuses.

The exhibition was accompanied by the film, A Clean Sweep, along with a catalogue featuring essays and writings by Fran Lebowitz and Glenn O’Brien.

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