Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles; lives and works in New York) is the 2026 recipient of the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize. Featuring works spanning the past five years, Clockwork marks the artist’s most robust institutional exhibition to date and her first solo exhibition in Texas. Presenting newly commissioned work alongside selected key series in sculpture, video, neon, and works on paper, the exhibition has been thoughtfully designed by the artist to bring these distinct, interconnected bodies of work into dialogue.

Smith’s conceptually-driven practice examines systems of power, tracing how they operate not only as infrastructure but as psychological and cultural conditions that are often hidden in plain sight. Through formal strategies such as seriality, disorientation, appropriation, and shifts in scale, Smith builds on legacies of postminimal sculpture and conceptual art to reveal how these narratives are constructed, internalized, and unrelenting. The exhibition title, Clockwork, evokes the mechanical precision of the systems Smith interrogates—cyclical, seemingly inevitable, and often imperceptible—underscoring their quiet but persistent operations in everyday life.

The exhibition is co-curated by Alex Klein, Head Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs, and Julie Le, Assistant Curator, The Contemporary Austin. Following its debut in Austin, the exhibition will travel to The FLAG Art Foundation in New York in September 2026, organized by Jonathan Rider, Director. An accompanying exhibition catalogue co-published by The Contemporary Austin, The FLAG Art Foundation, and Dancing Foxes Press is forthcoming in early 2027.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in New York. Her creative practices span across video, performance, and the visual and literary arts. She has built a practice tracing the threads of violence and power embedded within systems of belief, infrastructure, language, intimacy, the quotidian, and beyond. She was recently included on the 2024 TIME100 Next—the magazine's annual list of 100 individuals shaping the future of their fields and defining the next generation of leadership. Her work has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; MoMA PS1; New Museum; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Institute of Contemporary Art Boston; and numerous others. In 2022, she was included in both the Whitney Biennial and the 59th Venice Biennale. Smith has received awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Creative Capital, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Fine Arts Work Center, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Art Matters, among others. In 2025, she was an artist-in-residence at the Rauschenberg Residency on Captiva, as well as BOFFO Fire Island.

Artist Image: Portrait of Sable Elyse Smith. Photograph by Tommy Kha.

ABOUT THE SUZANNE DEAL BOOTH / FLAG ART FOUNDATION PRIZE

The Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize is a biennial prize that supports an artist with a $200,000 award, a solo exhibition at The Contemporary Austin and The FLAG Art Foundation in New York, an accompanying publication, and related public programming. In accordance with the mission of the prize, the winning artist is chosen based on their outstanding merit, a strong record of exhibitions, and the transformational impact the award stands to have on their life and artistic career. A rotating, independent advisory committee, made up of renowned curators and art historians of contemporary art, selects each year’s recipient.

The prize is made possible by Suzanne Deal Booth and The FLAG Art Foundation.

The 2026 Advisory Committee:

Led by Alex Klein, the 2026 selection committee included Dan Byers, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown; Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, faculty-at-large, School of Visual Arts, New York City and former Director, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Christine Y. Kim, Britton Family Curator-at-Large at Tate Modern, London; and Jonathan Rider who served as institutional advisor.

Smith is the fifth artist to receive the award. Past recipients include Rodney McMillian (2018), Nicole Eisenman (2020), Tarek Atoui (2022), and Lubaina Himid (2024).


Communications Partner

Exhibition Program Support

The Contemporary Austin’s Exhibition Program is supported in part by Malú Alvarez, Christopher and Adrienne Bosh, The Suzanne Deal Booth Curatorial Fund, Debbie Dupré and Richard Rothberg, The Irvin Loughlin Family Curatorial Fund, Chris Mattsson, The Lora Reynolds and Colin Doyle Curatorial Fund, Zarmeena Vendal, and anonymous donors. Exhibitions and programming are also made possible by Still Water Foundation.

Additional support for The Contemporary Austin is provided by the generosity of its Board of Trustees, Members, and donors.

Press Release

Sable Elyse Smith: Clockwork Press Release

"The Contemporary Austin Announces 2026 Programming" Press Release