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Nelson Smith, A Man at a Desk
a weekly television series with other late breaking developments.

detroit contemporary presents the first complete look at Nelson Smith’s weekly television series, “A Man at a Desk” through an exhibition of all 52 storyboards and the presentation of his original music/sound selections from the piece. The exhibition will also include recent paintings. Smith has been working with images, actions, sound and the written/spoken/sung word for many years, composing paintings, installations, theatrical performances and media events. The unique relationship of words and images, the core elements of his paintings, have been the essential component of his theatrical works, “The Missing Persons (States of Mind)," 1989, “Psychological Gravity,” 1993, “humanradiation,” 1996, and the various sections of “Natural Selection;” “Electricity,” 1995, “Home,” 1996, and “Forced Air,” 1999. Some of these pieces are included in the “Creative Contact” data-base, through www.harvestworks.org.

Begun in 1999, “A Man at a Desk” is a weekly series of 52, 3 minute video episodes to be presented at a designated time through broadcast, cable or the internet. These episodes would be anticipated, like the weather report, by the audience as a metaphysical almanac. All 52 episodes will be presented at detroit contemporary in composed storyboards. These pieces are carefully drawn, combined with texts and printed in a limited edition of archival digital prints. The prints are for sale individually or as an entire suite. The “A Man at a Desk” storyboard prints are the first stage in producing the series for television. Also presented at detroit contemporary, will be selections of the original music/soundtrack.

“A Man at a Desk” centers around a single man, a desk and objects (with actions) in a sympathetic relation with a text (sometimes a narrative). Objects are manipulated in ways that transform them while the superimposed text(s) challenge the context. The texts never simply illustrate the visual. In this project each episode repeats the format of a man seated at a desk (quintessentially the anchorman), but then varies the actions from calamity (the desk bursts into flames) to a small detail (an electrical plug is discovered in a glass of milk). A music/sound score is integrated with the spoken text as in Smith’s performance works.

Also presented at detroit contemporary will be painting works from the past year. These new works continue the interest of objects in transformation, and their juxtaposition with the “other world” of text. Formally, the texts in previous works moved across the painting in horizontal stripes. In the recent works, the texts break apart into fragments in different configurations from lists to stories told in spiralling texts, creating a new dialogue with the compositions. A new vocabulary of images joins the old. Particularly new is the use of the tree (stumps) and a return to asymmetry. These new pieces together create a sometimes humorous world struggling with human experiences of renewal, betrayal, death, and of course, a measure of anxiety.

“A Man at a Desk” is supported by ArtServe Michigan in conjunction with the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.