B r i d g e t   S m i t h

b. 1966, Essex, UK
Lives and works in London, UK

Bridget Smith Empire (Blue) 1995 C-print on mdf, a/p Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London

Bridget Smith is less concerned with documenting the reality of the places she photographs than their relation to reality. From the themed motel rooms of California’s Madonna Inn to low-budget glamour studios, the spellbinding architecture of cinema interiors to the gilded façades of the Las Vegas strip, Smith identifies locations where illusory fantasy worlds are created – environments that blur distinctions between material reality and subjective fantasy, interior and exterior realms. Her photographs of old movie theater interiors integrate a sensuous appraisal of their theatrical architecture with an awareness of the social role played by these places, recalling Siegfried Kracauer’s prescient description of Berlin’s picture palaces, written in 1926. In Las Vegas, a place Smith has repeatedly photographed, the subtle realignments of public and private space according to subjective fantasy are reminiscent of the architecture of nineteenth-century Parisian arcades. Smith’s photographs capture moments when both the fiction and the fact of Vegas are visible, from the traces of neon vying with the dawn light, to the extravagant artifice of gated communities set in the brutal desert landscape outside Las Vegas. Isolating and removing elements from each equation – the darkness of night, the movie that animates a theater or the people that inhabit these spaces – Smith highlights the web of consensus that underpins spectacular society. The luscious colors, large-scale formats and extraordinary use of light in Smith’s disarming photographs further expose the mechanisms of spectacle, but with a sensitivity that underscores the ambivalent vitality and fragility of modern life.

Bridget Smith Excalibur (Dawn) 1999 C-print on aluminum, edition 1/3 Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2002 Centro de Arte, Salamanca, Spain. 2001 Gallery Side 2, Tokyo, Japan. 1999 Fotogalleriet, Oslo, Norway. British Council Window Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic. 1996 All or Nothing, Studio Gallery, Budapest, Hungary.

Bridget Smith Luxor II 1999 C-print on aluminum, edition 3/3 Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London

Selected Group Exhibitions
2002 Commodity, Firmness and Delight, Cube, Manchester, UK. Faux Real, Borusan Art Centre, Istanbul, Turkey. Once Again, John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. 2001 Magic Hour, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria. ExtraOrdinary: American Places in Recent Photography, Madison Art Center, Madison, WI. 2000 Because a Fire was in my Head, South London Gallery, London, UK. Real Places?, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany. Give and Take, Jerwood Gallery, London, UK. 1999 Blue Suburban Skies, Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK. Vertigo: The Future of the City, The Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Scotland. 1998 Inbreeder: Some English Aristocracies, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland. History: The Mag Collection, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, UK. 1997 Public Relations, Stadthaus Ulm, Germany. Within These Walls, Kettles Yard, Cambridge, UK. Aplenblick: die zeitgenössische Kunst und das Alpine, Kunsthalle Wein, Vienna, Austria. 1996 British Art Show 4, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, UK. Ace, Hayward Gallery, London, UK. 1994 Institute of Cultural Anxiety, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK. Close Encounters, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK.

Bridget Smith Stratosphere II 1999 C-print on aluminum, edition 1/3 Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London

Further Reading
Cruz, Juan, “Review: Bridget Smith, Frith Street Gallery,” Art Monthly no.207 (Jun. 1997): 30-32
Durden, Mark, “Hollow Illusions: The Work of Bridget Smith,” Portfolio no.26 (Autumn 1997): 46-47
Grabner, Michelle, "Specters of the Ordinary," Afterimage v.29 no.5 (Mar.-Apr. 2002): 11
Hickey, Dave, “Double or Quits,” Frieze no.50 (Feb. 2000): 60-62
Kracauer, Siegfried, “The Cult of Distraction: On Berlin’s Picture Palaces,” The Mass Ornament trans. Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995): 323-28
Maloney, Martin, "Bridget Smith," Flash Art v.28 no.183 (Summer 1995): 121
Montgomery, Robert, “Bridget Smith,” Flash Art v.33 no.212 (May-Jun. 2000): 118
Patrick, Keith, “Sites of Trespass: On the Return of the Narrative,” Contemporary Visual Arts no.33 (2001): 42-47
Smith, Bridget, “Artist’s Project: Tokyo Inside Out – Bridget Smith,” Tate Magazine no.24 (Spring 2001): 34-37
Wilson, Andrew & John Riddy, Bridget Smith, exh. cat. (Centro de Arte de Salamanca: Consorcio, Salamanca, 2002)
Worsdale, Godfrey, "Bridget Smith: Entwistle Contemporary, London," Art Monthly no.185 (Apr. 1995): 29-30

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