Michael Smith, Excuse Me!?!...I'm Looking for the "Fountain of Youth," 2015, Production still. Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, New York, NY. Photo credit: Michael P. Garza.
The Boca Raton Museum of art opens a solo exhibition of work from Transmedia Professor Michael Smith titled Excuse Me!?!...I’m Looking for the "Fountain of Youth" on Nov. 13, 2018. For the exhibition at the Boca Raton Museum, Smith has taken up the theme of aging once more. Aging, an obsession in our youth-oriented culture, becomes stereotypically associated with Florida as a haven for retirees.
As described by the Boca Raton Museum: “In a series of photographs, Smith’s ‘Mike’ is a hapless tourist trying to navigate the Fountain of Youth State Archeological Park in Saint Augustine, Florida, a city founded in 1565. After visiting the old world in St. Augustine, he moves on to KidZania, a child-oriented theme park see what is new with the youth of today. The installation also features a video of a ballet choreographed by Stephen Mills, with sound by Mayo Thompson, and performed by apprentices from Ballet Austin, in which ‘Mike’ tries to keep up with the contemporary moves of the young dancers. Another video shows ‘Mike,’ searching his pockets for glasses, keys, and earbuds in a one-man lost-and-found.”
In an earlier exhibition of this work at Greene Naftali Gallery in 2015, the Brooklyn Rail wrote, “He rummages back through his pockets searching for his glasses, which inevitably do not help him to read the map. It’s bizarre idiosyncrasies such as these that guide viewers through the exhibition and beguile them into Smith’s peculiar exploration of existence. These videos document the aging Mike’s quest to find the Fountain of Youth. In particular, Mike’s frustrated journey examines the idiosyncrasies of being a tourist, of needing to consume every moment of unknown spaces and existences.”
The entire exhibition has the ambience of a medieval hall with its tapestry about the legend of the Fountain of Youth, and series of hanging pennants with patterns from the memory game, Sudoku.
The exhibition will be on view from Nov. 13, 2018 – March 24, 2019.