John Smith

‘John Smith is a British artist and filmmaker. Inspired by conceptual art and structural film, since 1972 Smith has made over forty film, video and installation works, that have been shown internationally in galleries, cinemas and on television.

Often rooted in everyday life, Smithplayfully explores the language of cinema by subverting the boundaries between documentary and fiction, representation and abstraction.​’ - Tate

We looked at these two films in class:

The Girl Chewing Gum (1976)

Om (1986)

Dad's Stick features two well-used objects that were shown to the artist by his father shortly before he died. Looking back over half a century, the film cre...

“John Smith’s films, videos and installations are the work of a master craftsman and a maestro of deception. As such, they offer multiple access points – thematic, formalist – whilst being irrefutably entertaining. Form and content are intrinsically bound together, puzzles to play with, to partially solve, as we are instructed not only in ways of seeing, but in an understanding of film predicated on demystifying its oft-masked means of construction.” - From ‘Information: Suspect, Construction: Evident’, Ian White, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival catalogue essay, 2002

http://johnsmithfilms.com/about/

Further Reading

Jasmine Rider, former FdA Film student, did her own homage to John’s Smith’s ‘Girl Chewing Gum’,