Visitors to The Ringling’s Museum of Art have the extraordinary opportunity to experience the work of contemporary artist Shinique Smith (b. 1971) in conversation with The Ringling’s collection of European art. Well known for her monumental sculptures created from an array of materials including luxurious textiles, personal clothing, dyed fabrics, ribbon, and wood, and for her abstract paintings of calligraphy and collage, Smith’s work has been exhibited and collected by many institutions, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, California African American Museum, LACMA, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MoMA PS1, MFA Boston, and the Guggenheim.

Shinique Smith: Parade is the first exhibition of Smith’s work at The Ringling, and the first time she has presented her work in direct dialogue with a museum collection of historic European art. The show, which includes several recent large-scale sculptures as well as smaller works including drawings, sculpture, family photos, and found objects, creates a series of unique stories told in various galleries of the Museum of Art, which together form an abstract narrative of the “parade” as a metaphor for life. Smith’s work speaks to various facets of the European artistic tradition, such as classical drapery and Christian iconography, while foregrounding notions of Black femininity and the history of the circus. Through explorations of color, pattern, gesture, and the body, Smith comments on environmental and social concerns and expresses her own spirituality and worldview.

An installation of small bundled sculptures, vessels of jewelry, and drawings in Gallery 6 introduces the visitor to Smith’s work. Inspired by her admiration for the beauty that her grandmother and mother created in times of “making do” and building magic from everything they had on hand, this installation will also display a collection of photographs of the women in her family dressed to the nines, along with some of their personal treasures, to form a venerated visual poem. Moving through the Museum of Art galleries, visitors will find several examples of Smith’s acclaimed large-scale fabric sculptures. In works such as Inflamed by Golden Hues of Love and Mitumba Deity, Smith explores her reverence for the curves and resilience of Black women, conveyed through shapely forms bejeweled and draped in gold. Notions of divinity, light, death, renewal, and rebirth pervade works like Grace Stands Beside and Stargazer, a sculpture inspired by the imagined path of an enslaved woman following the stars and counting the days to her freedom.

Smith also relates to the symbolism embedded within illustrations of mystical experiences and mythologies found in religious paintings. In her work, certain fabric patterns, drapery, and items symbolize her own past and honor specific people. Bale Variant No. 0025 (Etta Parthenia’s Treasure) is a portrait containing one beloved woman’s garments and accessories, while Bale Variant No. 0027 (Charm city girl stele) is a self-portrait celebrating Smith’s teenage years as a young artist writing graffiti in Baltimore. In keeping with Smith’s conception of bales and tethered sculptures as odes to figures from the past, the exhibition will also pay homage to the painful and complicated history experienced by Black people in the circus, some of whom were held against their will and displayed as freaks. Circus performers like the albino African American brothers Willie and George Muse are inspirations for two new sculptures, while a new installation of sound and printed silk banners celebrates aerialists like Alice Clark Brown.

Smith notes, “My hope for this show is to draw a balance between opposing depictions of people and the art histories that inform my hand, while celebrating the beauty found in our belongings and honoring the resilience and magnanimity of Black women.” The Ringling is delighted that Smith has chosen to present her work to Sarasota audiences within its European galleries, an experience that is sure to generate new ways of seeing and understanding both historic and contemporary art.

Visit The Ringling’s exhibition, Shinique Smith: Parade, on view through January 5, 2025.