For Collectors Reading Sable Elyse Smith's "Clockwork," Start With the Materials

Sable Elyse Smith has been talking about her show "Clockwork" at the FLAG Art Foundation in New York, and the lesson for anyone standing in front of the work is a simple one. The looking she does before a piece exists, she says, is not a preliminary step that the finished object leaves behind. It is the work itself. By her account, settling on what a piece will be made of is already a creative decision, bound up with everything that follows. That reframes how a visitor at FLAG should spend their time. The surfaces and substances in the room are not a vehicle for an idea arrived at elsewhere. They are where the thinking happened, and they reward being read as closely as any image.

With reporting from Artnet News.