Barbara T. Smith, Outside Chance

Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present Barbara T. Smith's seminal work, Outside Chance, 1975. Reflecting Smith's ongoing experiments with technology, in Outside Chance, Smith collaborated with Richard Rubenstein, a friend and computer scientist to create a series of 3000 unique, computer-generated prints of snowflakes, printed on continuous form paper. Smith carried these to the 21st floor of Las Vegas’ Plaza Hotel in a suitcase, wearing a wig and a film noir inspired outfit. Releasing them from a balcony onto the street, they fell to the ground like snow in the desert.

Since the 1960s, Smith’s work has demonstrated an engagement with issues of spirituality, gender, and power, making vital contributions to both feminist discourse, and the history of West Coast performance art. Smith received her BA from Pomona College in 1953, and MFA in 1971 from University of California, Irvine where she was a founding member of F-Space with Chris Burden and Nancy Buchanan. She has exhibited widely since the 1960s, and her work been represented in several historic survey exhibitions that include Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia?, Office for Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway, 2009, and WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, MoCA, Los Angeles, 2007, State of Mind, New California Art since 1970, Orange County Museum and Bronx Museum and The Radicalization of a 50’s Housewife at University of California, Irvine.