Jack Smith at Mitchell Algus - New York - art exhibition

Drawn from the personal collection of the late actress Maria Antoinette and her husband, painter Edwin Ruda, this special assembly of ephemera brought welcome attention to a chapter in the life of the legendary filmmaker, photographer and performance artist Jack Smith (1939-1985) and one of his stars. A Mescalero Apache Indian, Antoinette performed in three of Smith's productions in 1969 and 1970.

Among the well-tended objects on display, a smiling nun prays to a crucified lobster in Smith's poster design for the theater piece Miracle of Farblonjet, first performed as Stepladder to Farblonjet in 1968. Smith created the work at a time of rich ferment in the contentious (but thriving) New York theatrical milieu of the ridiculous that included such impresarios as Ronald Tavel, John Vaccaro, Charles Ludlam and Richard Foreman. In one photograph, Antoinette vamps with actress Ruby Lynn Reyner in Vaccaro's Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit (1969). The two shimmer with glitter in torn stockings and outrageous maquillage. It may be on this occasion that Smith penned a letter, included here, reproaching Antoinette for a betrayal and assuring her she would never play Ophelia in his Hamlet.

Undated drawings for costumes are frequently hilarious. One identified as The Belch depicts a many-breasted, grotesque reptilian figure, and another, The Wig, a femme fatale with smoldering eyes. The drawings recall, in handsome exaggeration, aspects of Edward Gorey and Aubrey Beardsley.

Contact sheets document Smith, Antoinette and company on the subway to Coney Island, with Smith embracing a 1969 tabloid bearing the news of the murder of Sharon Tate. A portrait by photographer Fred Eberstadt shows Smith in elegant profile, a finger extended to his throat. Another taken by the artist Gwenn Thomas in the Cologne zoo provided the cover shot for a 1974 issue of the art magazine Avalanche, in which Smith appears to be crowned by an extravagant array of plumage.

In the pages of a disassembled livre d'artiste decorated with a printed pattern of cockroaches, Smith maintains a thinly veiled attack on Susan Sontag for what he saw as her condescending defense (in the pages of The Nation in 1964) of his controversial 1963 film, Flaming Creatures. He suggests that his strategy all along--aside from the ongoing work necessary to "keep our date in Baghdad"--had been to seduce the media into writing about him. He scrawls in bold metaphor across one page, "Why else were we building a gypsy wagon in a rented lot?"

The answer to this question has become increasingly clear, as exhibitions and publications featuring Smith and his work and demonstrating his influence multiply. In such ways, word of his provocative gifts reaches the attention of a younger generation that seems particularly engaged by Smith's attitudes toward the making, presentation and commodification of art.

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