Michael Smith is a performance/video/installation artist who has exhibited and performed widely at fine art and popular venues, including museums, galleries, theaters, festivals, nightclubs, television, children birthday parties, online, and in the street. His work has been shown internationally at festivals and biennials including the 2017 Sculpture Project Münster, the Glasgow International and the 2008 Whitney Biennial. He has exhibited at the Tate Modern, London; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK; Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Le Magasin, Grenoble; Jeu de Paume and Pompidou Center in Paris; Mumok, Vienna, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum, PS1 and Sculpture Center in New York City.

His works are in the permanent collections of MoMA, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Migros Museum, Zurich; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim, Brazil; The LWL Museum for Art and Culture, Münster, and the Blanton Museum, Austin.

He is represented by the Greene Naftali Gallery in New York City, Hales Gallery and Dan Gunn in London and EDB Projects in Amsterdam.

Smith has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Center for Advanced Visual Studies at M.I.T., New York Foundation for the Arts, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and an Alpert Award in the Arts.

Throughout his career, Smith has been actively engaged as a lecturer and instructor at various institutions, among them Yale University, Columbia University, the Royal Danish Academy, Cranbrook, CalArts, Art Center and UCLA. Smith currently serves as Professor of Studio Art at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has been teaching performance art since 2001.

Smith lives and works in Austin, TX and Brooklyn, NY.