Portrait of JULIA SMITH
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JULIA SMITH

Awards Received

Individual Artist

Prior to 2012

About the Artist

Julia Kim Smith is a multidisciplinary artist whose work has been featured by Angry Asian Man, Animal, Art F City, artnet News, GQ, Hypebeast, Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz, kottke.org, Ms., Paper Magazine, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and international media outlets. Her films have received premieres at Slamdance Film Festival, Cinequest Film Festival, Center For Asian American Media CAAMFest, San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, and Maryland Film Festival. Smith has exhibited nationally and internationally with new media and feminist artists Renee Cox, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Kate Durbin, Hasan Elahi, Coco Fusco, Poppy Jackson, Rupi Kaur, Sarah Maple, Haley Morris-Cafiero, Phranc, Joyce J. Scott, Annie Sprinkle, Diane Torr, Sue Williams, Martha Wilson, and Barbara Zucker. Smith serves on The Creative Alliance’s Board of Trustees. She is a former A.I.R. Gallery artist, Rubys Artist Grant recipient, Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award recipient, two-time Creative Capital semi-finalist, and three-time Sondheim Prize semi-finalist. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Visual Communication from The University of Michigan where she was the recipient of a Rackham Fellowship. She worked as senior designer at the PBS and NPR affiliate WETA, Washington, DC, and has led design workshops at Maryland Institute College of Art. Her 3-D greeting card line SLANT was honored with the LOUIE Award and has been featured nationally at arango, Art Institute of Chicago, Baltimore Museum of Art, Kate’s Paperie, National Building Museum, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Store Ltd, Urban Outfitters, and Whitney Museum of American Art Store Next Door.

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Artist's Statement

Through my work, I address issues of racism, sexism, misrepresentation, and underrepresentation through traditional and new media. In particular, I am interested in the pervasive influence of the internet and its tools on society. I use both to inform my practice and to question what constitutes truth–and whose truth?

Featured Work

Photos

What To Wear To A Protest Satchel – Ivanka Trump Tribeca Solutions Satchel with “DEFY HATE” spray painted in white on the outside, “RESIST” on the outside pocket, “DEFY” on both sides. Shoulder strap, removable zip pouch, and dust bag (not pictured) included. SOLD
Site: SpaceCamp, Baltimore, MD, LabBodies Performance Art Review: Freedom, Curators: Dr. H. Corona and Dr. A. Pinkston (image courtesy Ada Pinkston, Instagram)
Street artist Banksy pulls off no small feat by being both the anonymous artist and the famous artist at the same time. But by being anonymous, he is like Virginia Woolf’s anonymous woman—“Anonymous was a woman.”—and anyone can appropriate his identity. Which is exactly what Julia Kim Smith does in her photo project With Banksy. She heeds Banksy’s edict (and Picasso’s: “The Bad Artists Imitate, The Great Artists Steal”), appropriates his hooded identity, and places him and his work in her own scenarios. In a series of photographs that challenge gender and celebrity roles, “Banksy” lounges front and center while Smith performs daily chores. But Smith is more than just the accommodating hostess, with “Banksy” she creates new social memes and street art for the internet. REFERENCES With Banksy: Great Artists Steal: The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, Forget Sorrow by Belle Yang With Banksy: Charlie Burn: Brochure from Luis Camnitzer's retrospective at El Museo Del Barrio, Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson, A Day At El Bulli by Ferran Adria With Banksy: Tesco Value Petrol Bomb: The Artist Is Present by Marina Abramovic, Everything Will Be Okay by Anonymous With Banksy: Keep It Tidy: Smorkin’ Labbit by Frank Kozik (Smorkin’ Labbit makes a “Where's Waldo?”-esque appearance in all the photos.)

Videos

  • Why

    See more information about Why
    In her video Why, Julia Kim Smith utilizes Google’s search engine's autocomplete feature to find out what people are wondering about her, an Asian woman, and discovers unsettling abstractions, truths, fallacies, desires, and fears about all of us. Why is a compilation of 24 of the search engine results.

    SCREENINGS
    2015 Fuse Art Space, “Exquisite Corpse,” Bradford, UK
    Curator: Sarah Faraday
    Exhibiting Artists: Anastasia Vepreva, Evelin Stermitz, Faith Holland, Julia Kim Smith, Kate Durbin, Lacie Garnes, Poppy Jackson, Rupi Kaur, Sarah Faraday, Sheena Patel, Sue Williams

    2014-2015 Institute for Women and Art, Rutgers University, “MTV: Momentum Technology Video” and “Momentum: Women/Art/Technology,” New Brunswick, NJ

    2014 Official Selection Center For Asian American Media CAAMFest, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, CA

    2013 DUMBO Arts Festival, Brooklyn, NY

    2013 Washington Project for the Arts, Pepco Edison Place Gallery, “Experimental Media 2013: Cyber In Securities,” Washington, DC
    Curator: Lisa Moren, Professor of Visual Art, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
    Exhibiting Artists: Birgit Bachler, Walter Langelaar, Owen Mundy, and Tim Schwartz; Channel TWo (CH2): Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook, with Jesus Duran; Heather Dewey-Hagborg; Hasan Elahi; The Force of Freedom with Dave Young; Taylor Hokanson; Ricarda McDonald and Donna Szoke; Lexie Mountain; Preemptive Media: Beatriz de Costa, Jamie Schulte and Brooke Singer; David Rokeby; Julia Kim Smith; WhiteFeather

    2013 Baltimore Artscape, “Slippage,” Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, Towson, MD
    Curator: Daniel Belasco, Curator, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York

    2013 The White Building, “Public Assembly: An Alternative Summer Show,” London, UK
    Organized by Free Cooper Union (UK) and Lawrence Lek. Supported by SPACE Studios.

    2013 MoMA PopRally: Abstract Currents: An Interactive Video Event, MoMA, New York, NY
    Medium: Video
    Year: 2012

  • The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore

    See more information about The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore
    The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore offers a punny and nuanced view of ten Baltimore neighborhoods in a video edited from iPhone screenshots of Wi-Fi network names.

    PRESS
    kottke.org, Jason Kottke, “The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore,” November 2015
    http://kottke.org/15/11/the-real-wi-fi-of-baltimore
    Medium: Video
    Year: 2015