Copublished with The Contemporary Austin and The FLAG Art Foundation, in 2026
With texts by Rizvana Bradley, Adrienne Edwards, Alex Klein, Julie Le, Jonathan Rider, Sable Elyse Smith
Design by Vance Wellenstein
Edited by Karen Kelly, Alex Klein, Julie Le, Barbara Schroeder
256 pages, 172 color images, hardcover, 9 x 11 3/4 inches
ISBN: 978-1-954947-25-2
Awaiting Stock. Available for Preorder
Known for her robust, conceptually driven practice, Sable Elyse Smith deploys formal strategies such as seriality, disorientation, appropriation, and shifts in scale to examine systems of power, tracing how they operate not only as infrastructure but also through latent psychological and cultural conditions. Drawing on the legacies of postminimal sculpture and conceptual art, Smith reveals how violent and oppressive narratives are constructed, internalized, and perpetuated. Across her work, Smith attends to the ways structures of punishment, surveillance, and racialized violence become embedded in everyday life, shaping perception, behavior, and the imagination. The title of this book and the accompanying exhibition, Clockwork, evokes the mechanical precision of the systems Smith interrogates—cyclical, seemingly inevitable, and often imperceptible—underscoring their quiet but persistent effects in everyday life. Published on the occasion of Smith’s most recent solo exhibitions for the 2026 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize at The Contemporary Austin and FLAG Art Foundation, the book brings into relation distinct yet interconnected bodies of work made over the past five years, including sculpture, video, neon works, paintings, and photographs.
