• "What can a coloring book reveal about the absurdity of carceral logic?"
  by Allison Noelle Conner, LA Times, 2023
• "Sable Elyse Smith Responds to the Rigged Logic of the US Criminal Justice System"
  by Matthew McClean, Frieze, 2020
• "Sable Elyse Smith on Visualizing the Carceral State"
  Video Interview, Artforum, 2020
• "Sable Elyse Smith: Ordinary Violence"
  Haggerty Museum of Art, 2019
• "Vanishing Points"
  Sable Elyse Smith in conversation with Sara O'Keeffe, Mousse, 2019
• "Firsthand at Arm's Length"
  by Diana Hamilton, Art in America, 2018

• Sable Elyse Smith: And Blue In A Decade Where It Finally Means Sky,
  Texts by Sable Elyse Smith, Horace Ballard, Johanna Burton, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, and Christina Sharpe
  JTT, New York, and Regen Projects, Los Angeles 2022
• ...In that Empire
  By Sable Elyse Smith and Cal Siegel, Pacific, 2019
• C.R.E.A.M.
  Texts by Jessica Lynn, A. H. Jerriod Avant, and Sable Elyse Smith
  Wendy's Subway, the Highline, New York, the Art for Justice Fund, 2018
• Sable Elyse Smith: Landscapes & Playgrounds
  Artist book, Limited edition of 115 +25 Special edition, Sming Sming Books, 2017
• Fictions
  Exhibition Catalogue, The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2017
• Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon
  Exhibition Catalogue, New Museum, 2017
• Ecstatic Resilience
  By Sable Elyse Smith, written in parallel with Lauren Halsey: Kingdom Splurge (4), Recess Art, 2016
• Blue Is Ubiquitous and Forbidden
  Artist Book, Limited edition of 150, 2015

b. 1986, Los Angeles, California
Lives and works in New York

2013, M.F.A., Parsons, The New School for Design, New York
2011, B.A., Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Georgia

Solo Exhibitions

2026
Clockwork, The Contemporary Austin, Texas, travelling to: The FLAG Art Foundation, New York (forthcoming)

2025
SCRIMMAGE, Carlos/Ishikawa, London

2024
Studio Sound: Sable Elyse Smith, If you unfolded us, curated by Martha Joseph, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

2023
FAIR GROUNDS, Regen Projects, Los Angeles

2022
Tithe, JTT, New York

2019
or the song spilling out, Carlos/Ishikawa, London
Mirror/Echo/Tilt, New Museum, New York (collaborative project with Melanie Crean and Shaun Leonardo)

2018
BOLO: Be on (the) lookout, JTT, New York
Ordinary Violence, Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
How We Tell stories to Children, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia
Condo London, JTT hosted by greengrassi and Corvi-Mora, London

2017
Ordinary Violence, Queens Museum, Queens, New York
and then the street lights-like a warning bell, Assembly (Recess), Brooklyn, New York

2015
Blue is Ubiquitous and Forbidden, SOHO20 Gallery, Brooklyn, New York

Selected Group Exhibitions & Screenings

2025
On Education, Amant Foundation, Brooklyn, New York

2024
Growing Sideways: Performing Childhood, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York
Burning Down the House: Rethinking Family, Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Switzerland
Seeing Through Stone, San José Museum of Art, San José, California

2023
Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility, Guggenheim Museum, New York
Flesh & Flowers, Made in America, curated by Lauren Taschen, Paris
Playscape, JTT, New York
Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, travelled to: Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana; The Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Not For Sale, NXTHVN, New Haven, Connecticut
Wa Na Wari, Seattle, Washington

2022
Introverse: Allegory Today, 80WSE Gallery, New York University, New York
Dark Light: Realism in the Age of Post-Truths, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Aïshti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon
To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood, The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston, Massachusetts
Combinations, curated by Damien Davis and Alaina Simone, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, New York
Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky: A Tribute to Lawrence Weiner, Regen Projects, Los Angeles
The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept, curated by David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Not only will I stare, Christian-Green Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
Prison Nation, The Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts
This Tender, Fragile Thing, Jack Shainman Gallery, The School, Kinderhook, New York

2021
Closer to Life: Drawings and Works on Paper in the Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
Just Above My Head, JTT, New York
Wild Frictions, Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Cincinnati, Ohio & Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin
ICA Miami Digital Commission, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami (screening)
Off the Record, Guggenheim Museum, New York
Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, conceived by Okwui Enwezor, New Museum, New York
Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio

2020
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, curated by Nicole Fleetwood, MoMA PS1, Queens, New York, travelled to: Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, Alabama (2021); Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island (2022)
SI ONSITE, Swiss Institute, New York
In lieu of an ocean (send flowers), curated by Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland, Oregon
Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art, curated by Antwaun Sargent and Matt Wycoff, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York
Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts, and Banal Presents, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts

2019
On Refusal: Representation & Resistance in Contemporary American Art, MAC Belfast, Ireland
Great Force, ICA VCU, Richmond, Virginia
Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art, OSilas Gallery at Concordia College, Bronxville, New York
Colored People Time: Banal Presents, ICA Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Poetry Is Not a Luxury, Center for Book Arts, New York
The Smiths, Marlborough, London
MOOD: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2018-19, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York
No One Is Innocent, MoMA PS1, Queens, New York (screening)
Radical Reading Room, Studio Museum 127, Harlem, New York
The Land That I Live In, Matthew Brown Gallery, Los Angeles

2018
Moving Body, Moving Study, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York
Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the Justice System, CAMH, Houston, Texas, travelled to: Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, Massachusetts (2019)
Production Values, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA SITElines.2018: Casa Tomada, SITE Santa Fe, Sante Fe, NM
Agora, High Line, New York
Prison Nation, curated by Nicole R. Fleetwood, Aperture, New York, travelled to: Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio, Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona, Florida (2019); and University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland (2020)

2017
Glass Ceiling: Art of Resilience and Fragility, curated by Osman Can Yerebakan, UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, New York
Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon, curated by Johanna Burton, New Museum, New York
Other Romances, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York
"Elaine, let's get the hell out of here", curated by Ashton Cooper, Nichelle Beauchene Gallery, New York
Fictions, curated by Connie H. Choi and Hallie Ringle, Studio Museum, New York
UPTOWN: nasty women / bad hombres, curated by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, El Museo del Barrio, New York
Memory is a Tough Place, curated by Macushla Robinson, Kellen Gallery at The New School, New York
Watchlist, curated by Goedele Bartholomeeusen and Kat Herriman, SIGNAL, Brooklyn, New York
Your Body is a Battleground: VOLTA 2017, curated by Wendy Vogel, SVOLTA NY, New York
The Exposed Suture, curated by Natasha Marie Llorens, Rond-Point Projects, Marseille, France
Who Gets To Look, curated by Virginia Arce UC Irvine Galleries, Irvine, California
FAWC Visual Arts Fellows Exhibition, Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts
Without a Body, curated by SIGNAL, Andrea Rosen Gallery 2, New York

2016
Emerging Arts Fellowship Exhibition 2016, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, New York
With Liberty and (in)Justice For All?, Gateway Project Spaces, Newark, New Jersey
Partner in Crime, Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey
Focus on the Funk: Journeys, Serpentine Gallery & Birkbeck Cinema, London (screening)
Over the Wall, Southern Exposure, San Francisco
Comrade What is Your Visual Bond?, Sunday Sessions: Screening, MoMA PS1, New York (screening)
History As I Know It, On the Ground Floor Gallery, Los Angeles
History As I Know It, IMPeRFeCT Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

2015
La Lucha II Dom & Haiti Visions of Tomorrow, Andrew Freedman Home, Bronx, New York
Dis Place, The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, New York
Inherited, BRIC, Brooklyn, New York
Consequential Translations, Centro Cultural de Espana, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
La Lucha, Rio Penthouse Gallery, New York
RESPOND, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, New York

2014
Yeah That's What She Said, Specials On C, New York, NY

2013
Gaze Series #5: Transgressions, Artist Television Access, San Francisco (screening)
Contemporary Temporary Sound Works And Music, organized by Daniel Neuman, Eyebeam, New York
Present Futures, The Mandrake, Los Angeles (screening)

2012
Silencing The Self, 25 East Gallery, New York

Selected Curatorial Projects

2022
Beneath Tongues, Swiss Institute, New York

2020-2021
SI ONLINE: FEAR TOUCH POLICE, Swiss Institute, New York

2019
C.R.E.A.M., High Line Art and The Kitchen, New York

Selected Performances & Readings

2024
If you unfolded us, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

2022
Belly of the Wail: A Score and Duet, Swiss Institute, New York

2018
Performing Fictions, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

2017
LANDSCAPES & PLAYGROUNDS Book Launch, Recess Assembly, Brooklyn, New York

2016
Artist Love Poets, The Poetry Project, New York
The Listening Party, MoMA Pop Rally, New York
Sable Elyse Smith & Camel Collective, The Poetry Project, New York
Selfish Magazine: Issue 3, Over the Eight, Brooklyn, New York

2015
Mirror/Echo/Tilt, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture: New York, New York
Blue is Ubiquitous and Forbidden, SOHO20 Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Sifting, The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, New York
“AUNTSforcamera” Artist-Devised Tour, New Museum, New York, New York

2014
Heart, Voice, Song: Three Meeting Performances, Museum of Arts and Design, New York
Fallow Time: Movement Research Festival: Through Body, Through Earth, Through Speech, Queens Museum, New York

2013
Dissident Futures Art and Ideals Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Through Body, Through Earth, Through Speech, Eyebeam, New York
Performative Reading Event for Daily Violence with Huong Ngo, The Window at 125, New York

2012
The Future is Fantastic (If You Want It), New Museum, New York

Selected Lectures

2019
Carceral Aesthetics: Sable Elyse Smith and Nicole R. Fleetwood in conversation at the ICA, London
Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith in Conversation with Nicole R. Fleetwood, New Museum, New York

2017
Public Art and Prison Reform, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

2016
Why Explicit? with Lorraine O’Grady & Sondra Perry, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, New York
Afrofuturism Conference 2016: #BLACKISVIRAL, Hyper Visibility of the Black Image with Caitlin Cherry & Devin Kenny, The New School, New York
In Conversation with Shaun Leonardo, BRIC, New York
Comrade What is Your Visual Bond?, MoMA PS1, New York

2015
New Museum R&D Seminar: Persona, Selected Participant, New Museum, New York
Dis Place: Artist Talk, moderated by Jessica Lynne, MoCADA, Brooklyn, New York
I Can’t Breath: Conversation w/ Shaun Leonardo, moderated by Kimberly Drew, BRIC, Brooklyn, New York

2014
In Conversation with Ayana Jackson and Monique Long, Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York
Subtleties of Resistance, Free University at Kara Walker’s A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, in dialogue with Nicole Fleetwood, New York

2013
Culture Push Honorary Fellow: Reading & Writing Group, as a member of the Fantastic Futures collective
iLab Residency: Through Body, Through Earth, Through Speech, as a member of the Fantastic Futures collective, New York

2012
It Is All Here. Memories Can’t Wait, panel participant, The International Center for Photography, New York

2011
History, Earth, Flesh, panel participant at the Liberal Arts Symposium, Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Georgia

Selected Grants, Awards, and Fellowships

2026
The Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize

2024
TIME100 Next

2023
Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship
The Swiss Institute Benefit Gala, honouring Sable Elyse Smith, New York
The Queens Museum Benefit Gala, honouring Sable Elyse Smith, New York

2020
The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant

2018
Studio Museum in Harlem Artist in Residence

2017
New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Program in Film and Media

2016
Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant
Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists
Recess Art Critical Writing Fellow
Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship
Creative Capital Fellow

2015
Art Matters Foundation
Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art
Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture

Selected Collections

The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
ICA Miami, Florida
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, California
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The New School, New York
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida
Pérez Art Museum, Miami, Florida
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Aeromoto Library, Mexico City
Center for Book Arts, New York
Everygreen State College Library, Olympia, Washington
Free Black Women’s Library, New York
MoMA Library, New York
Princeton University Library, Princeton, New Jersey
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
SFMOMA Library, San Francisco
Smithsonian Libraries, Washington D.C.