Steven B. Smith (born 1946 in Wallace, Idaho), is an underground artist and poet from Cleveland, Ohio.
[1] Smith lived in Baltimore and other cities before coming to Cleveland in 1977[8] in pursuit of another man's wife.
[10] Smith's art uses iconic baubles with the effect of cheapening and attacking cultural themes.
[2] The work has been characterized as "difficult and uncompromising,"[11] and "repellent and grotesque," with roots from the dadaist collages of Schwitters and Rauschenberg.
[2][4] His work is washed in blue "corrosion," a mix of matte medium, copper powder, and salt.
[13] Smith first gained notoriety with a piece — American Ego — in the People's Art Show at CSU.
His piece was a four-by-three grid of Polaroid snapshots, nude photos of himself in compromising positions with the American flag.
Smith agreed to the removal as long as a "censored" notice was put on the wall in place of the missing art.
Previous occupations include sailor, milk man, life insurance salesman, avant garde theater manager, newspaper film and music critic, woman's shoe salesmen, prison cook, carnival laborer, and church janitor.
[8] Smith and Wilcox had an "Art Behind Bars" installation in the district with mannequins, Mickey Mouse, and neon tube calliope.
[4] Smith and Cat's spot in the warehouse became a gathering spot for other artists in the building, and scene, including S. Judson Wilcox, Melissa Jay Craig (AKA "Field Marshal May Midwest"), Jeff Chiplis, Laszlo Gyorki, Ken Nevadomi, Randy Rigutto, Jay Clements, and Beth Wolfe.
[4] Guests were offered keepsakes of miniature toy soldiers, babies in plastic bubbles, or poetry.
[17] SPACES Gallery was located on the first floor, making the warehouse the de facto epicenter of creative activity.
[4] Starting in 1986, Smith published the Cleveland cult underground publication ArtCrimes, a zine full of images and poems which also shared his disrespect for authority.
ArtCrimes took on the spirit of Smith's journals, like a sketchbook that's been passed around to dozens of different artists.
[5][13] The zine was influenced by the beats,[1] and was consistent with the style of publications from the days of Kerouac, Corso, and Ginsberg.
Ohio poets and artists included the likes of Daniel Thompson, Maj Ragain, Amy Bracken Sparks, Ben Gulyas, Chris Franke, Harvey Pekar, Gary Dumm, Masumi Hayashi and Ken Nevadomi.
[19] One reviewer postulated that ArtCrimes was the most significant publication of the Cleveland underground art scene in recent history.
[21] His most recent book, Where Never Was Already Is (published in 2018), includes several decades of his poetry as well as many black and white examples of his collage art.