Karinne Smith flays. I mean, slays. Slays. She’s the slayer: bedtime baddies, beware! Other entities who should also mind her resplendence: a decrepit het white art world patriarchy whose time is up; all those responsible for spotty and irresponsible archive-keeping that have flattened Black womanhood into a singularity; those who lack the imagination to see the rococo as radically political; the pitiable souls who just can’t take that much attitude, material mastery, and look-serving in one pass.

Karinne Smith plays: within the interstitial fleshes strung up between fruitful decay and virtual roleplay. In Smith’s sculptures and installations, skins are sloughed off of regulated subjectivities and instead expand (into pavilions) and contract (into ruched ruffles) with a coquetry that beguiles extreme body mod culture, quantum physics, and nubile feminist hauntologies in equal measure.

Karinne Smith daze: cloud watching beneath a lilac cotton candy firmament. Constellated above: Hannah Wilke’s chewing gums, Renée Green’s Mise-en-Scène, Haraway’s cyborgian body politic, and Doreen Garner’s blinged out abjection each bound with ribbon and bow to a maypole configuration of thought. Proceeding from the historical darkness of bodies-as-property and the high glam fidelity of body horror as a genre, Smith explores a body’s capacity as space, container, ornament, and morphological phenomena. We’re grateful to have her join us for the third edition of the Questionnaire.

Karinne Smith stays.



Karinne Smith, Pinkie II, 2021
Collagen film, flesh clamps, found bees, falsies, silicone, hair ties, baby powder, glass beads, found photograph, and tulle



What are your beauty secrets?

Undetectable layering, using my hands, lying about having done or not done surgical procedures.



What’s the matter?

Being your own princess can be lonely.





What is your greatest extravagance?

I'm in the process of getting elongated canine teeth made, three on each side of my top incisors.



What is your most treasured possession?

My process.


Karinne Smith, Keeper 5, 2021
Found photograph, melon, collagen, dried carpenter bees, sewing pins, glass beads, plaster, and plexiglas



Do you keep a diary?

No, too paranoid.



What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Voodoo, my 15 year old cat.



When and where were you happiest?

The opening of my first solo show in 2021, I was in love.



What was your first job?

I was a hostess at Buca di Beppo, and I stocked shelves at 2 AM at Michael's.



Which living person do you most admire?

Black women.



If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

An extraterrestrial.



What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Humility.





Do you cook? If no, how do you feed yourself? If yes, do you have a signature recipe?

Not lately, I drink iced coffee like it's water, and inhale any food from establishments on my walking paths.



What did you have for breakfast?

Iced coffee, 1 order of hashbrowns from Dunkin'.



How do you usually sleep?

Skydiving.



What questions are you asking yourself?

Where am I supposed to go now?





Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

He/She/They are a piece of (fucking) work.



Which talent would you most like to have?

Singing, like Mariah.



What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My process.


Karinne Smith, Untitled, 2022
Collagen, silicone, ribbon, and rope, (detail)



Describe your work space. What qualities do you need in your environment to do what you do?

Natural light, big flat/even floor surfaces, some wire shelves, dry air. I like my studio to be able to be packed up at a moment's notice.



Describe your dream date.

They initiate, take me to a restaurant with small plates and order everything for me, except for my drink. Just before I dig in, they stop me and pull out Lactaid pills. We chew on the Lactaid and then go to town, feeding each other little bites and getting buzzed off of expensive, bubbly drinks. After we're done at the restaurant we go for a walk to a small cocktail bar where we cozy up next to each other. Someone in passing says we make a beautiful couple. We get the check and they drive me home, showing off their impeccable, one-handed, under-the-influence driving skills. They walk me to my door, give me a simple kiss, just a little tongue, and before they leave they take-in my appearance one last time, with a gaze that would make any girl feel special.


VISCERA, Installation View, Simone Subal Gallery, New York, 2022



Where would you most like to live?

I don't know, and it's killing me.



Which living person do you most despise?

All of my exes.



What do you most value in your friends?

Reliability.



What do you most enjoy wearing?

Things that show off my body.





Who are your favorite writers?

Mina Loy.



Do you have a favorite film?

No, but I do enjoy Death Becomes Her.



Is there an album or piece of music you listen to the most?

I don't like to think about music.





What are you reading right now?

Atlas of Anomalous AI by Ben Vickers and K. Allado-McDowell. So far not into it, it's a lot of granola ideas about AI.



Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Eh, none.



Is there anything you regret not doing?

I wish I learned the piano.



Favorite drink?

Thai iced tea with lime.



Favorite smell?

My grandpa.



Favorite color?

All shades of purple.


Showgirls, 1995, Film Still



Favorite time of day?

The purply sky just before dawn, it feels like a secret.



Where do you dance?

Alone in my room or in my studio.



Do you have anything going on or coming up you want to plug?
Where can people find you? Website address? Instagram handle?

I'm currently making a large (18 ft) piece to be installed at the Hessel Museum at Bard College as a part of the Curatorial Studies thesis. That will be up April 1st.

People can find me on Instagram at @bend_oeuvre.