Josh Smith: Destiny
David Swirmer Gallery, 519 West 19th Street, New York
January 21 - February 28, 2026
I believe that I can use a combination of mental looseness and an almost meditative concentration to access Consciousness. The same place that the artist goes to make the art.
Giacomo D'Ariano and Frederico Faggin's new theory of Consciousness* claims that it is not linked to the functioning of the body and can persist even after death. That it is somewhere else, in another dimension. The body behaves like a drone controlled by this source.
Josh Smith's new show at Zwirner is of paintings of Grim Reapers on bikes on New York streets.
I believe they are painted from AI-generated images. AI really doesn't understand how bikes work at all, any more than it understands how arms connect to the body under that shroud. The hands become wheels, and some join the body to the bike. AI is looking for patterns on the plane at the front of the image, mainly because it has difficulty with the Z-axis. Consequently, wheels order themselves decoratively, lines of handlebars or cross braces link with bikechains in gestural strokes.
AI is perfectly situated to communicate with another dimension+. It has become like a global unconscious. A dream state that is in danger of becoming a mass hallucination.
Before that happens, perhaps it can reveal pure states of being.
What other ways can I use to access the creative infinite? I have read that drugs can help, but which ones? The shimmer of ketamine? The feel-good confidence of MDMA? There are Halloween colours here that could've come from a 'shroom schema. Purple skies, dirty yellow lights, Pepe the Frog green bikes. Do I need to be on drugs to understand them?
The painting above depicts a reaper at the top of some subway steps, wielding a bike object. It is a good example of Smith's tendency to turn an image into a symbol. The amalgamated reaper and bike form an X shape in the middle of the canvas. I closed my eyes and attempted a deeper connection to the piece. But the symbol became an obstacle barring the way to the city and to life itself. The British slang term "Christ on a bike!" connotes surprise.^ This image is of inevitability.
In some areas of these canvases, the figure, bike, and bike chain become obnebulated. AIhas given up, and the artist has rendered its ejecta as is. Abstraction that is merely confusion.
In an attempt to reach out to Consciousness, I took dowsing rods to the gallery. They can also be used to tell the future or divine hidden truths by bypassing the logical processes of the mind. Unfortunately, although they told me where the water pipes were in the building when I asked, "Is this a good painting?" They did not respond.
Conclusion:
What can I understand about Josh Smith's new show at David Zwirner Gallery called Destiny in terms of quantum Consciousness?
"Embrace Uncertainty:" Smith's work thrives on contradiction. Instead of trying to resolve these tensions, let them exist simultaneously, much like a quantum system holds multiple potentials. That state of not-knowing is central to the experience." - DeepSeek
*"Hard Problem and Free Will: An Information-Theoretical Approach" by Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano and Federico Faggin, January 2021
+According to Slovenian philosopher Alenka Zupančič, "A structure trapped in an endless feedback loop of self-referentiality."
https://iai.tv/video/the-language-of-the-unconscious
Similar, less common variations include "Christ on a stick" or "Christ on a cracker."