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STEFAN SMITH: SUZUKI GSX- R1000 This is the latest project by British-born installation artist Stefan Smith in which art and advertising are one and the same. Since 1995 Smith has exhibited thousands of packets of Smiths Crisps, bottles of Coca Cola, cans of Red Bull, the KFC logo with a smiling Colonel Sanders and an Alfa Romeo. In 2003 Stefan Smith covered the walls of Sydney’s Regent Street Gallery with 10,000 packets of Smints, the Spanish non-sugar breath mint. He sold them for $20 per packet. For Smith: “The art gallery becomes a cultural billboard effectively downloading the sponsor’s brand into art history.” The use of product as art is a theme that commercially-shy artists do not often investigate, but which Stefan Smith takes to with gusto. Smith says: “If Christo wraps, I advertise.” Smith’s exhibition of a SUZUKI GSX-R1000 motor bike is both advertising, and art. Stefan Smith says that by manipulating advertising and marketing he is “trying to broaden art’s audience by eradicating the distinction between art and advertising.” Smith knows the power of images and the power of an image to seduce consumers. The distinction between art and advertising, previously blurred by Andy Warhol, is erased by Smith. Smith does not paint the product and place it in a gallery as Warhol did with his Campbell’s soup cans and Brillo boxes, Smith exhibits the objects themselves. By giving advertising the status of art Stefan implies that art is not merely a spiritual pursuit but a business. Does Smith see his work as an affirmation or a criticism of our consumer society: “Neither” he says “I am more posing the question than stating an opinion.” The ambiguity of Smith’s position, like that of Pop Art, provokes discussion because it is difficult to ascertain whether Smith opposes or enjoys rampant consumerism. The most satisfying way to appreciate Smith’s SUZUKI GSX-R1000 is to yield to the inherent ambiguity and explore and debate the issues Smith’s installation provokes. Stefan Smith’s exhibition has been generously sponsored by SUZUKI.
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