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Barbara T. Smith

As an early pioneer of Performance Art, Barbara T. Smith began her groundbreaking work in the late 60′s. Since then she has performed throughout the U.S. in Europe and Asia. She received her B.A. from Pomona College and her MFA from U.C. Irvine in 1971 and has taught and lectured at colleges and universities throughout the US and abroad. Smith’s work reflects the concerns of women and the environment. Her ceremonial/shamanic performances investigate female erotic power as a healing force, and food as a uniquely female means for nurturance, as metaphor and material for art. Her own work has become an art/life quest on the cusp between manifest life and the invisible realm. A recipient of a Vesta award from the Women’s Building in 1983 and a Lifetime Achievment award from the Women’s Caucus for art in 1999, she has also received 3 NEA grants. Smith has participated in the founding of several alternative spaces in L. A. and has produced and curated many multi-artist performance events. Included in the recent show of LA artists at the Pompidouin Paris, and the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution show first at MOCA,later at PS1 in New York, she is currently writing a book about her early career and resides in Venice.