![Space Station Chinoiserie #1: Take Hold of the Clouds, 2018](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1300x1300/public/2020-10/EX8899_ICA-W-023.jpg?itok=zmB9WKrm)
Space Station Chinoiserie #1: Take Hold of the Clouds, 2018
Digitally printed wallpaper
Courtesy of the artist, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, and Kate Werble Gallery, New York
The wallpaper in the galleries depicts sites and references that recur throughout the exhibition, imagining them as part of a contiguous, otherworldly landscape. Hanging over this backdrop, this reproduction of a group portrait taken by photojournalist Bill Ray shows young men at the foot of the Watts Towers in Los Angeles. The towers were built by Italian immigrant Simon Rodia from 1921 to 1954 on the lot where he lived. Rodia never explained why he built the whimsical sculptural environment but entitled it Nuestro Pueblo (“Our Town”). The site has long registered as a symbol of self-dedication and renewal for the surrounding neighborhood; the sculptures were left untouched during the 1965 Watts Rebellion. In 1966, LIFE magazine hired Ray to document the aftermath of the incident. The photograph seen here was not published when the story ran but was of interest to Smith because of the way the subjects’ “easy, relaxed, and elegant stances contradicted the photographer’s initial agenda, which was to capture the simmering rage of Black youth.” Smith reimagines this photograph in her video Sojourner.