Sable Elyse Smith Reveals the Shapes of State Violence
“Clockwork,” Sable Elyse Smith’s exhibition at the Contemporary Austin, presents a sustained critique of the US prison-industrial complex and is described as the culmination of her winning the 2026 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize. The show includes paintings that appropriate prison coloring books made for children visiting incarcerated relatives, alongside large-scale sculptures and installations that use repetition and seriality associated with Minimalism to evoke structural injustice. Smith’s video “LAUGH TRACK, OR WHO’S THAT PEEKING IN MY WINDOW” (2021) re-edits footage from police reality TV with rewinds, fast-forwards, and inverted images to emphasize how routine encounters can escalate into detention and profiling. A second video, “skin suit” (2025), juxtaposes law enforcement interactions—highlighting disparities in treatment—to underscore how bureaucratic procedures and bias shape state violence.
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This story was covered in Markets Ablaze, Museums Under Fire