Burn Down the House

‘The show is called Burn Down the House. The title is a reference to the way Christopher Wool approaches his enamel paintings, the ones that say "Sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids." I like the punchiness of that. I'm pulling from a lot of things. Martha Rosler, Cady Noland, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer's "Protect me from what I want" work.

All that 80s commentary on consumerism and the things we think we're supposed to have. And then there's the Talking Heads song, Once in a Lifetime, "This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife." I think a lot about that song, the American Dream. Future tripping and how easy it is to mistake that for happiness.

The paintings in this show depict Dorothy's house (Wizard of Oz) as it's falling from the sky. Reminds me of Jeff Wall's A Sudden Gust of Wind, which is actually a recreation of the Hokusai work "Yejiri Station," where everything is suspended in this moment of loss of control. That's the feeling I'm after. Everything you've built, thrown up in the air.

I want to know what's on the other side of that. Is the storm the metaphor, or was it the house. I don't think the show is prescribing anything. It's more a question about what we're actually building when we build a life, and what it might mean to let it go.’ — Lucien Smith