Details:
① Artwork:
Dragon
The solid .925 sterling silver Dragon necklace is a one-of-a-kind sculpture-cum-pendant, created by Josh Smith in collaboration with gallerist and jeweler Will Shott. The pendant is meticulously hand brushed and polished so as to convey the sense of an old relic. It is approximately 3” in height and 5” in length, making for both a freestanding sculpture and a wearable piece of fine jewelry.
For Josh Smith, finding the perfect collaborator to help fulfill his longtime ambition to make jewelry was worth the wait. Will Shott's gallery, WWW, will soon exhibit their extensive collaboration of sculptures hung from the ceiling. The pair partnered with Platform to transform three of them into sculptural jewelry in the form of pendants that hang from adjustable solid silver 20-22” chains. Apart from simply making them wearable, the chains underline how the Studio Jewels series fits into Smith's practice—both echoing the setup of the gallery display and nodding to the emphasis he often places on the borders of his paintings. To Smith, the pendants are not so much jewelry, but rather an extension, and even new form, of his fine art.
The reason for such a mindset is particularly clear in the case of the one-of-a-kind Dragon figure. Shott took a meticulously restrained approach to polishing the oversized pendant, highlighting certain points so as to call to mind sculptures with areas smoothed over years of human touch.
Specs:
The Dragon figure is hand brushed and polished to create an already worn effect.
③ Artist:
Josh Smith is a New York- and Tennessee-based artist working with painting, collage, sculpture, printmaking, and artist’s books. He first emerged in the early 2000s for a series of paintings that depicted his own name as the primary motif, allowing him to experiment freely with abstraction, figuration, and other expressive possibilities. His work has since evolved to varied imagery and includes series’ featuring grim reapers, leaves, fish, streetscapes, and palm trees.
Josh Smith was born in 1976 in Okinawa, Japan. His father was in the US Army, and his family moved frequently. They eventually settled in East Tennessee, where the artist mostly grew up. His work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions at museums and arts institutions in the United States and abroad, including at the Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany (2016); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome (2015); Zabludowicz Collection, London (2013); The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut (2011); Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva (2009); De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands (2009–2010); Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna (2008); and SculptureCenter, New York (2004).
The artist has been represented by David Zwirner since 2017, and his first exhibition, Emo Jungle, took place at the gallery’s 519, 525, and 533 West 19th Street locations in New York in 2019. David Zwirner Online presented High As Fuck, the artist’s second solo show with the gallery, in 2020. Also in 2020, a solo exhibition of new paintings was presented concurrently at the gallery’s locations in London and 69th Street in New York. In September 2023, a solo presentation of the artist's work went on view at the gallery’s Paris location.
Smith’s work is held in numerous international public collections, including The Broad, Los Angeles; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Smith has lived and worked in New York since 1998.