Whitney Biennial 2022:  Quiet as It’s Kept

Floors 5 and 6

Michael E. Smith works with manipulated everyday objects that he reimagines through placement and juxtaposition. Frequently precarious in condition and placed in overlooked spaces, his works evoke a variety of fragile states—physical, economic, political, and emotional. The logic of these works—an appraisal of the relationship between trash and treasure—speaks to a culture of both obscene abundance and rampant need. But Smith’s objects also teem with a sly and biting humor, a form of slapstick that uses breakdowns and stumbles to point to a culture in an ongoing state of collapse.