Acclaimed American sculptor, Adam Park Smith, presents a series of brand new works in “Flight of Fancy”, which will be his first solo exhibition in Europe.
In less than a decade, Adam Parker Smith has established himself as one of the hottest sculptors on the American art scene. His style is exemplary in its combination of irony, references to popular culture, visual deception, and sublime craftsmanship. There are obvious tips of the proverbial hat to Jeff Koons in Parker Smith’s work, but they also hold an ambiguity and a conceptual gravitas, which you would not necessarily associate with Koons.
The driving force for Adam Parker Smith is an ongoing ambition of imbuing lightness with weight and making the ephemeral last. A particular focus has been on inflatable objects such as balloons, airbeds, and pool toys, which he combines in new ways or places in awkward settings, models, casts in concrete or epoxy resin, paints, and processes so meticulously that eventually even the trained eye cannot tell them from the real thing. In his exhibition with Hans Alf Gallery, Parker Smith presents us with a contrapposto pool float, a sleeping bag sarcophagus and a giant pyramid of glossy Valentine’s Day hearts among other things. Throw-away society meets high culture in “Flight of Fancy”.
Adam Parker Smith holds an MFA from the Tylor School of Art at Temple University, Pennsylvania. He has shown works in Copenhagen with his American gallery as part of their presentation at ENTER Art Fair, but “Flight of Fancy” will be his first solo exhibition on Danish soil – and for that matter on the continent as a whole.