Exhibitions
Dr. Charles Smith makes artwork continuously, regardless of surrounding conditions. He pours his energies into sculptural production and archives development in calm times or while enduring nested traumas. From 1986 until quite recently Dr. Smith’s works were make for his African American Heritage Museums and Black Veterans Archives, first in Aurora, Illinois (1986 – 2000), then in Hammond, Louisiana (2001 – present) and as of 2021, in the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s Art Preserve, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Recently his steady output of sculptures are made in a smaller, more intimate scale. They’re not made for display at his Hammond, site, and depart from his former purpose as an artistic placemaker. The individual works can be exhibited in museum and gallery exhibitions, acquired by public collections, and enjoyed in private collectors’ homes.
Dr. Smith’s concept of “archive” is mutable and takes various forms. He saved and continues to gather every scrap of information about African American and veteran events and history. He takes pride in his collection of thank you notes from visitors, letters of commendation from politicians, educators, cultural leaders, and other testimonials to his generosity and cultural contributions. These reflect the conventional idea of an archive as preserved paper documents. The site itself resembled an exploded historical archive, with the museum as a teaching/learning machine. Dr. Smith is a gifted orator and story teller and his museums were and are platforms for powerful exhortations about histories that sculptures represent. Dr. Smith embodies the Archive, and in addition to physical residue, he is the Archive.
Current
Chicago, IL
Upcoming
Baton Rouge, LA
Past
Chicago, IL
New York, NY
curated by Kenneth C. Burkhart and Lisa Stone,
Collection de L’Art Brut (Lausanne)
curated by Kenneth C. Burkhart and Lisa Stone,
Outsider Art Museum (Amsterdam)
curated by Kenneth C. Burkhart and Lisa Stone,
Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren (Kaufbeuren, Germany)
Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art, Great Falls, MT
curated by Kenneth C. Burkhart and Lisa Stone,
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art (Chicago)
curated by Kenneth C. Burkhart and Lisa Stone,
La Halle St. Pierre (Paris)
The Kohler Art Center
Sheboygan, WI
New Orleans, LA
American Visionary Art Museum
Baltimore, MD
Reviews, press, suggested readings
Andrew Paul Woolbright, “Dr. Charles Smith,” The Brooklyn Rail, September, 2022 (pdf)
Randy Kennedy, “A Self-Taught Artist Takes His Roadside Acropolis North,” New York Times, July 8, 2022 (pdf)
Your Concise New York Art Guide for July 2022,” Hyperallergic, June 29, 2022 (pdf)
Jim Higgins, “Dr. Charles Smith finds a home for arc of Black Experience at Sheboygan’s Art Preserve,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, February 14, 2022 (pdf)
Jeffery Wolf, Marching On, Raw Vision #105 (date), pdf
Mary Louise Schumacher, “A Museum Salvages Artistic Visions in Full,” New York times, May 30, 2021 (pdf)
Paris Gibson Square Museum press release, July 2020 (pdf)
Lisa Stone entry, SPACES Archives – Dr. Smith’s AAHM&BVA Aurora, Illinois
Lisa Stone entry, SPACES Archives – Dr. Sith’s AAHM&BVA Hammond, Louisiana
Leslie Umberger, “Dr. Charles Smith - Remaking the World,” Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds, John Michael Kohler Arts Center exhibition catalog, 2007
Straight At The Heart Dr. Charles Smith, 1995 Beloit College exhibition catalog (pdf)
Scholarships and Theses
Lydia Cardenas
"My MA thesis at the School of the Art Institute explored the outdoor museum of artist, minister, veteran, and activist Dr. Charles Smith. My project was rooted in the aim to create an oral history archive for Dr. Smith. Using his words, he sketches the social, political and economic factors that him to create his own museum. Dr. Smith makes commemorative sculptures as a strategy to honor the everyday experiences of people in his community. My thesis was an attempt to reconcile an imperfect and incomplete portrait of an octogenarian who lives and works in seemingly non-stop motion. My analysis was grounded by Dr. Smith’s artworks and archival ephemera, which serve as illustrations of his evolution as an engaged citizen and artist."
Emma Mooney
In the summer of 2021, Tulane University graduate student, Emma Mooney, conducted thorough research and documentation at the AAHM & BVA in fulfillment of requirements for her Master of Science in Historic Preservation. She was advised by preservation consultant and educator, Lisa Stone, and Brent Fortenberry and Laura Ewen Blokker of Tulane University. The resulting report, "A Case Study in Methodology at Dr. Charles Smith's African American Heritage Museum and Black Veterans Archive, Hammond," outlines the physical state of the site at this time along with speculation on its future. Incorporating the philosophies and best practices of both museological and preservation practice, Ms. Mooney documented Dr. Smith’s environment using a variety of techniques from traditional measured drawings to laser scanning to condition assessments of individual sculptures. The final report provides extensive ground-level and drone site photography, digital elevations of the East and South elevations, assessments of 319 sculptures, and a 3-D laser scan of the site's entirety as of August 2021 (just before the site sustained significant damage by Hurricane Ida). Her findings shed light on the current condition of the AAHM & BVA as well as the many quandaries that arise in the attempt to preserve a piece of the recent past that is not, nor will ever be, truly finished. The report also aims to address the value of artist-built environments overall, the challenges of their preservation, and the ways in which the professional preservation community might become more inclusive and understanding of idiosyncratic sites of individual expression such as this one.
