Starting from the shape of gardens, villages, caves, temples, towers (Rosen helped protect the now landmark Watts Towers of Los Angeles), self-proclaimed kingdoms, and castles, many such installations disappear upon the death or displacement of their creator due to sporadic local resources or interest in saving them.
But when Smith decided to shift his focus from Aurora to Hammond 22 years ago, while traveling back to Louisiana to care for his mother, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisc., a pioneer in the preservation of environments created by American artists, stepped in and helped save much of the work in Illinois, purchasing more than 200 sculptures.
In the summer of 2019 I saw some of those pieces for the first time in a exhibition in the Kohler† The show somehow felt more like a captivating theater production, with a huge, motley cast, than a sculptural grouping. And I soon understood why a review I had read online about the exhibition, in The Magazine Antiquessaid Smith’s work, in the specificity of his gaze, lands “like a gut punch for comfortable concepts of folk art.”
Matthew Higgs, the director and chief curator of White Columns, which for years has made the venerable nonprofit a destination for work by self-taught artists, artists with disabilities and others who defy conventional classification, first saw Smith’s work on the Kohler in 2017.
Several of his pieces were carefully interwoven into a sprawling installation by the Brooklyn-based artist Heather Hartwho wrote at the time of Smith, “His subjects radiate pride, celebrate talent, recognize despair and reflect endurance: they are African American heroes and heroines, spiritual leaders, artists, musicians, athletes and friends.”