ISSUE NINE
A COLLECTION OF IMAGES, PROJECTS, AND THOUGHTS FROM THE STUDIO OF PHILLIP K. SMITH III
What. When. Where
Phillip K. Smith III at Hotel Bel-Air
Los Angeles, CA
FEBRUARY 28 TO OCTOBER 1, 2024
Dorchester Collection’s Hotel Bel-Air welcomes the installation of four works by artist Phillip K. Smith III via a contemporary arts initiative recently established at the historic Los Angeles property. Curator Jim Hedges originally conceptualized the creation of a sculpture garden for the hotel’s Garden of Eden-like setting in order to create a dialogue between the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape and the work of important contemporary artists. Smith is thrilled to be the third artist included in this important exhibition as he has a strong desire to exhibit work in atypical spaces, outside the realms of the traditional, white-walled gallery. The hotel’s lush grounds provide a perfect backdrop for Smith’s light-based and reflective installations, allowing light, landscape, and the atmosphere of the day to become artistic medium within the works.
Light:
Visionary Perspectives
Aga Khan Museum
Toronto, Ontario
JULY 13, 2024 TO APRIL 21, 2025
Marking the Museum’s 10th anniversary, Light: Visionary Perspectives dives into the omnipresence and impact of light, placing visitors at the center of an immersive exhibition filled with contemporary installations by renowned artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor, Kimsooja and featuring Two Corners, by Phillip K. Smith III. Through the harnessing of light, the varied and dynamic installations challenge perceptions and provide space for reflection. Set against the backdrop of the Aga Khan Museum’s stunning architecture, which was designed to showcase the interplay of light, shadow, and form, Light: Visionary Perspectives invites you to rediscover the world through illuminating artworks that explore the boundless possibilities of light.
Special Thanks to:
Domenico Dolce, Stefano Gabbana, Alfonso Dolce, Fedele Usai and the entire Dolce&Gabbana team. Balich Wonder Studio, Technolegno (Giovanni, Stefano + team), La Diligenzia, Kizy Art Production (Sean & Alec), Nora
Archaelogical Site Administration, and the various university archaeological teams, Davis Jensen for his intense focus and visualization skills, and Lance Gerber for, yet again, beautifully capturing another one of my projects.
Nora Mirage
Dolce&Gabbana Alta Moda 2024 Sardinia, Italy
JULY 2 TO OCTOBER 1, 2024
Commissioned by Dolce&Gabbana for the 2024 Alta Moda event, Nora Mirage, is on view July 2 to October 1, 2024 at the Nora Archaeological Zone near Pula in Sardinia, Italy. For information on visiting Nora, please go to: archaeology-travel. com/italy/sardinia and click on Nora.
Credits:
Photography: Lance Gerber Studio @lance.gerber
Graphic Design: FFF Inc.
Mariana Pariani / Sebastián Gagin
Text: Phillip K. Smith III @phillipksmith3
WWW.PKS3.COM
PKS3 X ADLAR
Cylinder XM8, 2023
Pigmented ink letterpress on Reich Savoy brilliant white cotton rag (350gsm) 18 x 18 inches (46 x 46 cm) Edition of 80
Scan this QR code, download the ADLAR app and then scan the Cylinders print above. For additional information about the project or print please contact info@pks3.com
In his project with ADLAR studio, Phillip revisits and reconceives the first sculpture he ever created, Cylinder XM8. His Cylinders series, created back in 2004 and included at the core of his 2022-23 exhibition, LIGHT + CHANGE, at the Palm Springs Art Museum, focused on the precise manipulation, rotation, and stacking of wood surveyor stakes to create varying scaled, undulating forms defined by light and shadow.
For Phillip’s first foray into Augmented Reality, he explores a 2-D representation of a 3-D sculpture that then triggers a virtual version of that same sculpture. The print, essentially a blueprint of Cylinder XM8, employs 12 separate plates printed via letterpress creating a print of stunning depth and dimensional subtlety.
Via the ADLAR app, each print triggers an Augmented Reality animation of the Cylinder XM8 sculpture building itself up and dismantling down, like a breath. With each cycle, the AR form moves through a series of color gradients informed by Phillip’s
work in light – creating here an exploration into how light and space can be explored virtually. The limited tones of the physical print were selected in contrast to the infinite colors of the digital experience –varying combinations of red, green, and blue, which reference the color range in light within which Phillip normally works.
About Cylinders
The Cylinders, Phillip’s first series of sculptures, were created in 2004. They focused on light and shadow created through the precise manipulation and rotation of a single module: A readily available, off-the-shelf Douglas Fir surveyor stake. Defined through a variety of structural parameters set up by Smith, there are 3 variations of 3 variations of 3 variations that create 27 unique forms, varying wildly in scale, opacity, and density of structure. While the daylight animates the exterior surfaces in a cacophony of textured light and shadow, the evening’s internal lighting reveals a canvas of geometric patterns defined through opacity/translucency, light/shadow, and figure/ ground relationships. Like lit geometric campfires or glowing lanterns, the Cylinders invite discovery, movement, warmth, and calm.
About ADLAR
ADLAR studio is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of artistic expression through augmented reality (AR) prints. For Phillip and the other artists ADLAR works with, these (AR)t editions are the first of their kind for each artist. ADLAR believes in giving artists a way to further express themselves beyond the surface of the print by providing them the transformative power found at the intersection of art and technology. ADLAR studio is a pioneering platform dedicated to showcasing the intersection of creativity and innovation through augmented reality (AR) prints. Our mission is to redefine the way people experience and interact with art, bringing a new dimension of excitement and wonder to the world of visual expression. ADLARSTUDIO.COM
Nora Mirage, 2024
SARDINIA, ITALY, JULY 2 TO OCTOBER 1, 2024
Text by Phillip K. Smith III
As with many important projects in my studio, they begin rather mundanely with an email. The email leads to a conversation, which leads to an NDA, which leads to a Zoom, which leads to an in-person meeting. The first time I arrived at the Nora archaeological site in Sardinia, it was February, 2024. It was cold, rainy, and windy. I had been on a plane overnight, 15 hours after leaving Palm Springs, and was met by Dolce&Gabbana’s crew of 12+ people eager to know what I wanted to create for the Nora site and the Alta Moda show. Prior to the trip, in the studio, a Nora dossier had been created, outlining the immense history, vibrant culture, and current state of the ruins, which run directly to the edge of the surrounding Mediterranean Sea. As prepared as I can be, nothing compares to walking out onto the site in person. A project’s foundational concepts can, at times, be instantaneously developed in those first few minutes and I’m a believer in the bold, gut reactions that I feel in those first steps onto a site.
Left: PKS3 initial sketch for Nora Mirage — March 26, 2024
Top Right: Francesco Mantella, Head of Brand Events Department at Dolce&Gabbana, holding up a borrowed hotel mirror as we test reflections at the site.
From that site visit forward, over the next few weeks, there was a flurry of sketches, Zooms, emails, more sketches, conversations, drawings in sketchbooks over lunch, focused conversations, renderings, models, revisions and revisions and revisions, and then clarity. The clarity happened at Dolce&Gabbana headquarters in Milan midway through my first presentation. Midway because Domenico Dolce in his perfect black uniform and thick black glasses stood up, approached me, and smiled saying, “Phillip, you are worrying too much about the fashion. Don’t worry about the fashion. You are an artist. Do what you do and I will make my fashion work around your sculpture.”
He was right. While I had created Open Sky for COS for Salone del Mobile back in 2018 (a piece Domenico and Stefano noted as one their favorites), the installation was focused entirely on creating a unique art experience – a commission by a fashion house where no fashion was present. In this case, I was being asked to create a work that would have a singular moment, defining the space of the Dolce&Gabbana Alta Moda 2024 show – the brand’s yearly iconic presentation of their women’s couture presented every year since 2012. Each year Stefano and Domenico select a different city in Italy in which to site their Alta Moda experience. Out of that selection and their deep dive into the history, crafts, artisans, and beauty of the selected city and region comes their intensely focused, locally inspired Alta Moda designs. Everything they do is rooted in their love for Italy and their desire to share the breadth of their country’s culture through their fashion.
This year, for the first time ever, Dolce&Gabbana wanted to commission an artist to create an installation for Alta Moda. And so, as the first artist ever to work on this project, Domenico, in that conference room, cut through everything and offered me a blank canvas to work from. We moved immediately to a stack of 11x17 paper and started to sketch together. His desire, and mine, was scale. Domenico told me, “It must be so large that people will wonder how this could ever be!” Art at the scale of architecture has been my modus operandi from the inception of my studio. And, so, in that moment, talking with Domenico and his team, I saw Nora Mirage. I sat down and sketched what the project would ultimately become.
That was March 26th. The show would be July 2nd. 14 weeks away. Over those three and a half months, Nora Mirage would go through multiple iterations, the stage would be designed for the show, the sculpture would be engineered, the lighting coordinated, fabricators vetted and selected, the steel structure welded, the mirrored aluminum cladding cut and
This year, for the first time ever, Dolce&Gabbana wanted to commission an artist to create an installation for Alta Moda. And so, as the first artist ever to work on this project, Domenico, in that conference room, cut through everything and offered me a blank canvas to work from.
—Phillip K. Smith III
Left: Aerial view of Nora Mirage looking southwest with the Mediterranean Sea beyond.
Above: The view looking south from top of the hill near the entry to the Nora site.
As the sun moves from the east to the west, the shadows and linear bands of reflected light extending outward from each monolith create an ever-changing light drawing across the site.
The surrounding Nora site showing the only four freestanding columns (left), the Torre del Coltellazzo at dusk (right), and site path with various ruin walls of historic structures (below).
bent, all parts and pieces packaged and trucked from Milan to Naples, ferried to Cagliari, trucked near the site, and then, ultimately, flown to the Nora site via a couple hundred helicopter trips (no trucks could drive across the archaeological site). The crews from Technolegno assembled the monoliths in just a week with oversight from Kizy Art Production, La Diligenza built the stage and seating the following week, while Balich Wonder Studio oversaw all production along with Dolce&Gabbana. Hundreds of workers made this project happen while archaeologists from several universities ensured the protection of the site.
The July 2nd Alta Moda show was like a dream. I felt I was inhabiting an operatic poem of sky, color, humanity and couture. The show began just as the sun dropped behind the mountains to the west…the bell tolling. As each model glimmered across Nora Mirage, there was an accumulation of beauty and design – provided by Dolce&Gabbana. The wind whipped. The models confidently traversed the site. The 550 people in attendance, sublimely silent – in awe – as I was. It was, unexpectedly, a highly emotional experience in person – beyond my expectations. The final flurry of all 84 models flowing between the monoliths was a beautifully overwhelming collage of color, design, labor, love, history, sunset and perfect italianità.
Planned from the beginning of the project with agreement from Dolce&Gabbana, the site superintendent, and the archaeologists, the installation would remain on view within the Nora archaeological site until October 1st. And so, the morning immediately following the Alta Moda show, the stage, seating, lighting, and A/V were all disassembled and helicoptered back, leaving just the pristine site and Nora Mirage
The photos, captured by Lance Gerber, give an excellent sense of the chapter by chapter unfolding of the experience of the site and Nora Mirage. The drive to Nora extends along a skinny peninsular neck with the Mediterranean on both sides. Stepping onto the site, the late 16th century Torre del Coltellazzo is visible on the far east side as you ascend a low hill to the west. At the top of the hill, the bay stretches out to the mountains beyond as massive chunks of Roman brick ruins pile along the water’s edge.
Following the Via Sacra under the stone pines, Nora Mirage reveals itself as a lucid dream - seemingly real and unreal at the same time. The eleven tilted monoliths abstractly present the beauty of the Sardinian environment across its reflective surface – lifting the Mediterranean Sea, pulling down the Sardinian sky, tilting the horizon and collaging the ruins and history of Nora. The installation collects and bends the changing light of the day, appearing at times to be constructed entirely of blue sky, clouds, water, and land. Contrasting Nora’s horizontal layers of empires built on top of empires, Nora Mirage rises vertically, reaching to the sky - crisp and exact, yet organic and always changing. With no apparent context able to define the scale of the artwork, only the human form provides clarity of its immensity. As people engage with Nora Mirage, their reflections glimmer across the sculpture’s faceted surface, weaving human movement with vertical bands of nature.
As the cool air from Europe mixes with the warm currents of Africa, Nora Mirage appears and disappears, like a dream — transformed by the Sardinian sun, and draped with the sky, sea, and archeological ruins of Nora.
—Phillip K. Smith III
