Zak Smith - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Zak Smith, also known as Zak Sabbath, is an American artist and alternative porn star. He was born in Syracuse, New York

Syracuse, New York

Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...

in 1976, and grew up in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

After receiving a BFA

Bachelor of Fine Arts

In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...

from Cooper Union

Cooper Union

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...

in 1998, he studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and went on to receive an MFA

Master of Fine Arts

A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

in 2001. He lived and worked in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

until October, 2007, when he moved to Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

Art

Smith's body of work primarily comprises portrait

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

s, drawing

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

s, and abstract art

Abstract art

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...

executed in acrylic

Acrylic paint

Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...

and ink

Ink

Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...

. An enduring interest in comic books informs the artist's dynamic and obsessively detailed depictions of the people, objects, and stories that inhabit his world. Allied with punk

Punk subculture

The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...

and hardcore

Hardcore punk

Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...

culture and the DIY

DIY ethic

The DIY ethic refers to the ethic of self-sufficiency through completing tasks oneself as opposed to having others who are more experienced or able complete them for one's behalf. It promotes the idea that an ordinary person can learn to do more than he or she thought was possible...

aesthetic associated with these movements, Smith draws on traditions of decorative art

Decorative art

The decorative arts is traditionally a term for the design and manufacture of functional objects. It includes interior design, but not usually architecture. The decorative arts are often categorized in opposition to the "fine arts", namely, painting, drawing, photography, and large-scale...

to produce visually complex, labor-intensive pictures characterized by intricate pattern

Pattern

A pattern, from the French patron, is a type of theme of recurring events or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of a set of objects.These elements repeat in a predictable manner...

s and vivid color

Color

Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...

ation.These include repeated shapes (such as squares and lines) that are compressed to form 3D hints that form the picture. Zac also contrasts colours in his work, often using black and white with clear differentation within the scene.

Smith is best known for his portraits of female subjects - with an emphasis on eroticism

Eroticism

Eroticism is generally understood to refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love...

as well as the mundane aspects of his subjects' lives - and his page-by-page illustrations for Gravity's Rainbow
Gravity's Rainbow
Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28, 1973.The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest...

. The latter were featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial

Whitney Biennial

The Whitney Biennial is a biennale exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932, the first biennial was in 1973...

at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...

and are now in the collection of the Walker Art Center

Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...

in Minneapolis.

Recently, Smith has begun donating sizeable portions of the profits from the sale of his work to activist causes such as Food Not Bombs

Food Not Bombs

Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance...

and the West Memphis 3

West Memphis 3

The West Memphis Three are three men who were tried and convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin was...

.

Other public collections containing Smith's work include the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

and the Progressive Corporation. Zak Smith is represented by Fredericks & Freiser Gallery in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

Books

Smith has published three books. The book Zak Smith: Pictures of Girls (Distributed Art Publishers, 2005) includes selected plates from the series' Girls in the Naked Girl Business, 100 Girls and 100 Octopuses, and One Picture for Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...

Novel Gravity's Rainbow, in addition to stand-alone pieces from the period 2000-2005. In 2006, Tin House Books released a book of the entire set of Gravity's Rainbow images alone, with an introduction by author Steve Erickson

Steve Erickson

Stephen Michael Erickson is an American novelist, essayist and film critic. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters's Award in Literature and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation., and is considered an important representative of the Avantpop...

. We Did Porn: Memoir and Drawings (Tin House Books, 2009)--Smith's first work to include writing—focuses on Smith's experiences working in adult film. The non-fiction text is accompanied by over 100 paintings and drawings created during the same time.

Pornography

In February 2006, Zak Smith made his pornographic debut, under the pseudonym Zak Sabbath, in the VCA Pictures

VCA Pictures

VCA Pictures is an American pornographic film production and distribution company. The company was founded by Russ Hampshire, and was formerly a major player during the 'Golden Age of Porn'. Throughout the 70's and 80's VCA produced big budget, plot-oriented feature films...

film Barbed Wire Kiss, by director Benny Profane (whose name is itself taken from the Pynchon novel V.
V.
V. is the debut novel of Thomas Pynchon, published in 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U.S. Navy sailor named Benny Profane, his reconnection in New York with a group of pseudo-bohemian artists and hangers-on known as the Whole Sick Crew, and the quest of an aging traveller named...

). In the porn blog Fleshbot

Fleshbot

Fleshbot is a sex-oriented weblog, published by Gawker Media. It was launched in November 2003 as the third online title from Gawker. The range of subject matter includes everything from amateur sex blogs and thumbnail gallery posts to news about sex in popular culture and advertising...

, Smith mentions working on a project to help fund a film student's NYU thesis project entitled Freaky Kids I & II in 1996, but declares, "Here's where I'm making the BIG money" (although most of the money he makes in porn is actually donated to activist group Food Not Bombs

Food Not Bombs

). He followed this up with an appearance opposite Pixie Pearl in Eon McKai

Eon McKai

Eon McKai is an American director of alt porn-themed adult films. The name "Eon McKai" is a pseudonym and a tribute to punk singer Ian MacKaye....

's debut film for Vivid Entertainment

Vivid Entertainment

Vivid Entertainment Group is an adult video producer, featuring a catalog of VHS and DVD titles and internet content. In 2006 it was described by Reuters as one of the handful of studios that dominate the U.S. porn industry....

, Girls Lie, Bullets And Burlesque from Bad Seed Productions, with Sasha Grey

Sasha Grey

Sasha Grey is an American former pornographic actress, who has since turned to mainstream acting, modeling and music....

, Marie Luv, and Satine Phoenix, and Vivid's Hospital, with Coco Velvet and Mandy Morbid.

Other works

Since March 2010 Zak Sabbath has directed I Hit It With My Axe, a weekly video series featured at The Escapist

The Escapist (magazine)

The Escapist is an online magazine covering video games, gamers, the gaming industry, and gaming culture. Published by the Themis Group, it was edited by Julianne Greer up to June 30, 2009, then by Russ Pitts through September 2011, and is currently edited by Steve Butts. The Escapist was first...

website. Starring himself, Kimberly Kane

Kimberly Kane

Kimberly Kane is an American pornographic actress and director.She was engaged to the porn director Jack the Zipper for over two years, but they separated in 2006...

, Mandy Morbid, Satine Phoenix (all adult film performers) and 'Connie' and 'Frankie', a stripper and hair dresser respectively. Sasha Grey

Sasha Grey

Sasha Grey is an American former pornographic actress, who has since turned to mainstream acting, modeling and music....

, Justine Joli

Justine Joli

Justine Joli is the stage name of an American adult model and pornographic actress.-Early life:Joli grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, splitting her summers between a farm in Hannibal, Missouri and Crested Butte, Colorado. She did ballet from age 3 to age 15...

and Gia Jordan

Gia Jordan

Gia Jordan is an American pornographic actress and a staff photographer for AVN magazine.-Awards:*2005 AVN Award nominee – Best Tease Performance – Gothsend*2005 AVN Award nominee – Best Group Sex Scene – Tails From the Toilet...

have also featured. The show centers around the group's weekly Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

game in which Zak is the Dungeon Master

Dungeon Master

In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Dungeon Master is the game organizer and participant in charge of creating the details and challenges of a given adventure, while maintaining a realistic continuity of events...

and the others are adventurers within a campaign.

External links

Articles and interivews

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.