Michael Smith
b. 1951
Michael Smith is a video, installation and performance artist who invokes the routines of popular comedy to articulate the banality and hype of mass consumer culture, and the isolation of those whose inner lives are defined by it. In a series of videotapes, performances and installations, which he has produced since the late 1970s, Smith chronicles the trivial dreams and adventures of his eponymous alter-ego, the bland, deadpan "Mike," a postmodern Everyman who believes everything and understands nothing in his media-saturated world. The tragicomic tales of this underdog hero are performed by Smith within the parodic context of pop cultural formats: sitcoms, music videos, TV ads, variety and game shows. Smith's cunning lies in turning the media back on itself, in connecting the worlds of art and pop, culture and kitsch, an ironic approach that prompted J. Hoberman of The Village Voice to call him "a lower Manhattan cross between Rodney Dangerfield and Joseph K." In his live performances, Smith often assumes the guise of a stand-up comic; he has co-produced and hosted Mike's Talent Show, a free-floating performance extravaganza that appears in downtown New York clubs. In 1989, an…
Films