Next weekend – on Saturday, August 23, to be precise – Dana Smith, a self-taught St. Louis artist and young father of two, will debut his multi-media show, “In Money We Trust.” The idea is inherently political, playing with various notions of what the influence of cash has wrought on the political process in America.
Found at the Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts, at 3151 Cherokee in South St. Louis, “In Money We Trust” will bow with a unique event. It’ll be worth attending the opening, especially considering that the work will hang for only a short stretch, until September 1.
Says Smith, “Last summer I had read a report about how the coming Presidential campaign had the potential of topping $1-billion dollars in money raised and spent by all the candidates combined. I thought that was an outrageous amount of money and a disgrace to how the United States elects its President. At the time I was working on a painting of the back of a 20-dollar bill and it dawned on me, the road to the White House and money are so entangled that the very image of the White House is on the money.
“Then I thought about how politicians use issues like religion and guns to get people riled up,” he continues. “Politicians’ manipulation of these issues gave me some ideas. But one thing that gets lost in all this is regular people. People who will never have a lot of money, people who can barely afford to get their car fixed if it breaks down, people who work all day but only end up with enough money to eat one meal and yet we have these presidential candidates throwing millions of dollars around to advertise themselves as the people’s servants. It’s repulsive, to me anyway.”
While the project was coming together, Smith adjusted his sights, winding up with a fairly large amount of material, especially considering that Fort Gondo is a compact venue.
“There are 19 paintings, five photographs, two drawings and 65 copies of those drawings,” he says. “A painted Bible and another object that I’m still trying to figure out how to display. There will also be hundreds of copies of one of the paintings on paper. Lots of ideas and images were under consideration but these are the ones that seem to stick.”
In addition to the art, there’s a musical component. That might be a natural since Smith began getting attention in St. Louis as a songwriter, with his on-hiatus project Cloister. He maintains a presence on the local music scene, painting numerous contemporaries over the years. For next weekend, he’s pulled together several friends into a new presentation.
“Since this is a political show the idea of an acoustic performance was appealing,” Smith says. “Tim Rakel is a cool singer and banjo player from the band Bad Folk and it seems his style goes perfect with this sort of thing. Acoustic music has a nice tradition of being associated with protest songs, work songs and Americana. I pictured him kind of roaming around the gallery singing protest songs ala Woody Guthrie. Tim mentioned to me he had a side project called The May Day Orchestra, which features various members of Bad Folk, The Rats and People and Theodore (depending on who’s available) and offered them the show. Their songs are of a political nature and they play all acoustic instruments so there’s no fooling around with microphones or electronic equipment. They’ll be a great addition to the concept of the show.”
Smith says that being married and having two kids hasn’t necessarily added a more political or civic component to his work. Even a few years back, some of his first sketches and drawings were of past and present political leaders, from Jimmy Carter to Leonid Breshnev.
This project, though, pulled together his varied thoughts on politics, in a much larger form.
“There’s always been an interest in politics for me,” he claims. “CSPAN use to be a major addiction of mine years ago but now info can be found online. Elections are exciting to watch and keep track of. My interests are more aesthetic though, more about what the public is choosing and why. For better or worse I have a very cynical view of politics and government in general. This cynicism grew to gigantic proportions during the 2000 presidential election.”
Smith half-jokes that he’s “not sure what makes a good opening. Trying to keep expectations low is probably a good thing. It’s just about putting some paintings up on the wall, finding a cool band, getting some beer and inviting some people to hang out, like a little art party. If anything good happens as a result of that, then so much the better.”
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Want to know more about Smith and his work? Here are some links:
His art site:
www.asbestossister.com.
A direct link to his political drawings:
http://asbestossister.com/gallery/drawings/drawings_frameset.html.
A 2007 feature on him from St. Louis Magazine:
http://www.stlmag.com/media/St-Louis-Magazine/May-2007/Rock-Art/.
A 2005 interview from Playback St. Louis, featuring a previous show he curated at Fort Gondo:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c361/asbestossister/IMG_0004-10.jpg.