John Smith's Films in Sheep's Clothing at Galleria Alma Zevi, Venice

Galleria Alma Zevi in Venice presents Films in Sheep's Clothing, a solo exhibition by British artist John Smith (born 1952 in Walthamstow). The show features four films and a selection of photographic frames that encapsulate Smith's research from the 1970s to the present. Key works include Om (1986), Dad's Stick (2012), Steve Hates Fish (2015), and his seminal piece The Girl Chewing Gum (1976). The latter consists of two sequences: the first depicts a street intersection near a cinema in London's Hackney district, where passersby and traffic appear directed by Smith's voiceover; the second reveals the artist in an open field in Letchmore Heath, fifteen miles away, exposing the film's constructed illusion. Smith's practice consistently blurs the line between fiction and the apparent objectivity of the camera, interrogating language, authorship, and the failure of narrative objectivity in both word and image.