Substrata
Erik Smith

Purchase print copies here, or write to counterpath@gmail.com.

Substrata is the first monograph by Berlin-based, US American artist Erik Smith. The book presents six seminal projects from the past decade of working in locations as diverse as Berlin, Miami, Denver, Krems, and Palermo, and offers critical insights into the nature of his site-focused, interdisciplinary practice.

Smith’s work is about and emerges from investigations of place. Ruins, excavations, found objects, material remnants, casts, and room fragments serve as the material traces of what may be called an archaeology of performative gestures. In making conscious those features that exist on the margins of awareness, Smith questions what constitutes a sense of place and the role of less visible, hidden, or subliminal aspects in its perception. With author contributions by Jeremiah Day, David Komary, Christian Teckert, Chiara Valci Mazzara, and Gabriela Vaz-Pinheiro, and an interview with Bettina Klein. Co-published by permanent Verlag, Berlin, U. Porto–i2ADS, Porto, and Counterpath, Denver/New York, and kindly supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn. 

Erik Smith studied comparative literature and art in the US and Italy and lives and works in Berlin. His site-based projects and other works have been presented in various venues internationally including the University of Porto, Academy of Fine Arts, Porto (2023), Galerie Stadtpark, Krems (2021), de Appel Center for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam (2016), Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum (2012), SculptureCenter, NYC (2008). Smith is the recipient of various grants and fellowships including a Neustart Kultur grant from Stiftung Kunstfonds Berlin (2021), a project grant from Stadt findet Kunst, Berlin (2020), and was a guest of AIR – Artist in Residence Niederösterreich, Krems (2021). His work was recently featured in fort da, a California-based journal of psychoanalytical psychology (2023); Smith was awarded a catalog grant in 2023 from Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn.

Substrata
Erik Smith
April 2024
copublished with permanent and U. Porto-i2ADS
$35.00; 23cm x 17cm
256 pgs.
ISBN 978-3-910541-11-5

Purchase copies here, or write to counterpath@gmail.com.