Mickey Smith

Aotearoa New Zealand based Mickey Smith (b.1972 Minnesota, USA) is an award winning conceptual artist and photographer. For over two decades, her practice has been engaged with a longstanding inquiry into libraries, books and archives — in particular the social significance of their physical existence or disappearance.

 

Smith’s photography is a striking and poignant reflection of human history through her documentation of simple, provocative titles found on library shelves and most recently, second hand book stores around the world. Her work continuously explores the state of entropy within libraries, as we witness information systems shift, digitize and collections become deaccessioned. 

 

The artist’s playful capturing of words and scale transcend the spines on which they appear, to create conceptual, anthropological works, which document significant moments in time. "By focusing on the minutiae of books and magazine stacks, and blowing them up, Smith heralds the benefits of an open mind and a democratic tradition.” – D. Abbot,  Art New Zealand

In 2025 Smith won the Molly Morpeth Canaday Merit Award for her timely work, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. In 2022 her TIME & AGAIN series was exhibited in Venice at the European Cultural Centre. Smith’s largest-to-date public exhibition is currently touring the USA from Law Warschaw Gallery, St. Paul, Minnesota to the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska. The exhibition features several large scale installations as well as works from acclaimed projects Volume, Denudation, and As You Will: Carnegie Libraries of the South Pacific.

 

Smith’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions internationally, in Aotearoa and throughout USA. Her works belong to public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art Library, North Dakota Museum of Art, Sheldon Museum of Art and Weisman Art Museum. She has received grants and awards from the McKnight Foundation, CEC Arts Link, Americans for the Arts and Creative New Zealand.