Sable Elyse Smith

Excerpt from “skin suit” on view at @contemporaryatx until Aug. 2nd.

A little highlight from my Texas show! A Clockwork on view @contemporaryatx through Aug. 2nd. Install + Landscape VIII, 2026. 📷: Alex Boeschenstein

“The things that I’m interested in are the things that are camouflaged, the things that aren’t exactly legible. So, if it’s not exposing something, it’s about tuning a viewer’s attention differently. So that, when we look, we start to sharpen our looking, and we’re looking at these different things which helps create a kind of fluency that is more layered and complex. A knowledge that allows us to unravel gestures that purposely try to obfuscate what their real function or what their real intentionality is.” #sableelysesmith Sable Elyse Smith (@sable_elyse ) speaks with Samaira Wilson (@samairrrrrra ) about her solo show Clockwork at The Contemporary Austin. Smith discusses fictions of legibility, mechanisms of power, material-object relationships, intellectual productions of art, and reflects on being the 2026 Suzanne Deal Booth / Flag Art Foundation Prize recipient.

Sable Elyse Smith’s solo exhibition “Clockwork” is on view at @ContemporaryATX through August 2, 2026. ⁠ ⁠ The presentation celebrates Smith as the 2026 recipient of the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize and marks the artist’s most robust institutional exhibition to date. Presenting newly commissioned work alongside selected key series in sculpture, video, neon, and works on paper, the exhibition has been thoughtfully designed by Smith to bring these distinct, interconnected bodies of work into dialogue.⁠ ⁠ Following its debut in Austin, the exhibition will travel to The FLAG Art Foundation in New York September 24, 2026–February 13, 2027. Alongside the exhibition, the artist’s first institutional monograph will be co-published by Dancing Foxes Press in early 2027.⁠ ⁠ On Wednesday, March 25, the museum will host “In Conversation: Sable Elyse Smith, Boots Riley, and Rizvana Bradley,” 6:30–8 pm. ⁠ ⁠ Learn more at the link in bio. ⁠ ⁠ #SableElyseSmith #ContemporaryATX⁠ @sable_elyse ⁠ ⁠ All images: Installation views, “Sable Elyse Smith: Clockwork,” The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center on Congress Avenue, Texas, 2026. Artwork © Sable Elyse Smith. Image courtesy The Contemporary Austin. 📷 : Alex Boeschenstein. ⁠ 2. Sable Elyse Smith, “Coloring Book 126,” 2023. Screen printing ink, oil pastel, and oil stick on paper. 60 x 50 inches. Collection of Sam and Ronit Moradzadeh. ⁠

“One thing that I’ve always wanted to make is an inverted spotlight where everything inside the spot disappears and everything outside is illuminated.” —Anna Martine Whitehead From our Winter 2026 issue, artist and BOMB Contributing Editor Sable Elyse Smith interviews performance maker Anna Martine Whitehead. Speaking about her 2024 opera, “FORCE! an opera in three acts,” Whitehead reflects on her belief that a live performance can often be incidental to the political, economic, and architectural systems within which it operates. To Whitehead, the moments that surround a performance—rehearsals, audience arrivals, curtains rising and falling—hold emotional power commensurate to the performance, itself. BOMB Members receive immediate access to our winter issue, both in print and online. Follow our link in bio to subscribe and join today and read Smith and Whitehead’s full conversation. Image: Zachary Nicol, Rahila Coats, and Jenn Freeman (Po’Chop) in Anna Martine Whitehead’s “FORCE! an opera in three acts,” Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2024. Photo by Shelby Ragsdale. Courtesy of the artist.

BOFFO is thrilled to welcome Sable Elyse Smith, the fourth artist resident of our 2025 BOFFO Residency Fire Island season. Sable will be on the island from August 12th to September 1st, 2025. Join us this weekend for her Artist Talk on Sunday, August 17 from 12 to 1pm at Whyte Hall and save the date for her Artist Presentation on Saturday, August 30th, time and location TBA. RSVP: www.boffo.art Artist Biography: Sable Elyse Smith is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in New York. Her creative practice spans the visual, literary, moving image and performing arts. She has built a practice tracing the threads of violence and power embedded within systems of belief, infrastructure, language, intimacy, the quotidian, and beyond. She was recently included on the 2024 TIME100 Next—The magazine’s annual list of 100 individuals who are shaping the future of their fields and defining the next generation of leadership. Her work has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Ps1, New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston and numerous others. In 2022 she was a participant in both the Whitney Biennial, and the 59th Venice Biennale. Most recently her first opera, If you unfolded us premiered at MoMA (July 2024). Smith has received awards from Joan Mitchell Foundation, Creative Capital, Suzanne Deal Booth / Flag Art Foundation Prize, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Fine Arts Work Center, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Art Matters among others. @sable_elyse 📸 @gregoryhalpern Graphic Design: @compositeco

For Issue 6, fine artist Sable Elyse Smith sits down with writer Qingyuan Deng to discuss the intricate relationship between carcerality, seriality, and sculpture. Get a feel for Smith’s unique sense of space in her New Jersey studio via the link in bio. Text @dionysus.in.modernity Photography @theochoi_

Honored to be included in the 2024 #TIME100NEXT list. See the full list here: time.com/next. Shout out to table 19 and sincere, sincere thanks to @mitchsjackson for the words and the recognition, such a lovely surprise! Also so excited to celebrate @naimagreen as one of this year’s honorees at @baxterstccny benefit.

A new opera by Sable Elyse Smith, created in collaboration with composer David Dominique and vocalist Freddie June, will premiere in The Museum of Modern Art’s second annual presentation of Studio Sound—a performance series that champions artists and musicians whose work engages new possibilities for sound and music.⁠ ⁠ Titled ‘If you unfolded us,’ Smith’s opera is an immersive multimedia work, for two voices (Freddie June and S T A R R Busby) and an eight-piece ensemble, comprising a series of songs that weave together an unfolding love story between two Black women and the protagonist’s journey of self-discovery. Dominique’s score fuses traditional and popular musical forms, with influences ranging from R&B and jazz to musique concrète and contemporary chamber music.⁠ ⁠ Smith has written the libretto and created video for the performance. Taking a cinematic approach, she combines found footage with imagery from the performers’ interior worlds. In addition to the live performances, during the hours listed below the Studio transforms into a multimedia installation, featuring the work’s video and sound.⁠ ⁠ Performance schedule [sold out]:⁠ Wednesday, July 10, 8 pm⁠ Thursday, July 11, 8 pm⁠ Saturday, July 13, 3 pm⁠ Saturday, July 13, 8 pm⁠ Sunday, July 14, 3 pm*⁠ ⁠ Video viewing schedule:⁠ Wednesday, July 3 – Sunday, July 7, 10:30 am – 5:30 pm⁠ Wednesday, July 10 – Thursday, July 11, 10:30 am – 5:30 pm⁠ Friday, July 12, 10:30 am – 5:30 pm⁠ Saturday, July 13, 10:30 am – 12 pm⁠ Sunday, July 14, 10:30 am – 12 pm⁠ ⁠ *There will be a first-come, first-served standby line beginning 30 minutes before each performance. The matinee performance on Sunday, July 14, will be followed by a conversation between the artists and Martha Joseph, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance.⁠ ⁠ For more information, visit MoMA’s link in our bio.⁠ ⁠ Image: Portrait of Shala Miller, lead vocalist in Sable Elyse Smith’s ‘If you unfolded us,’ 2024. Photo: Naima Green⁠ ⁠ @sable_elyse @themuseumofmodernart @davedominique @freddie.june @_s_t_a_r_r_ #SableElyseSmith #DavidDominique #FreddieJune #STARRBusby #TheMuseumofModernArt #MoMA

New Opera drop July 10-14. Composed by @davedominique and starring @freddie.june and @__s__t__a__r__r___ Tickets on sale now! “If you unfolded us” 🖤. 📸: @naimagreen

New film drop: “weather Report,” July 3rd at MoMA. A part of a larger opera project titled “If You Unfolded Us” Co-Directors: @sable_elyse + @jessielevandov Creative Director: @naimagreen Producer: @ninaneon Prod Company: @_malaforever_ DP: Pierce Robinson 1st AC: Colin Morris 2nd AC + DIT: @peculiarwarrior Gaffer: @gadget.mov Grip: @audenbarbour Makeup: @makeupbykayacoleman Production Assistants: @esaivelasquez @austonbjorkman Rental House: prg.north.america with a special thank you to Gus Gustafson Edit: @jessielevandov Composer: @davedominique Vocals: @freddiejune Color: @aaron_burns_colors // @assemblypost **Starring** @ssanaazim @mcnedjett @tikaboo4u @jennydeluxe @theearthwarrior @nyukid14 @negraanegra