And the stars look very different today...

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.— Neil Armstrong

Rowan Smith's new show, If You Get Far Away Enough You'll be On Your Way Back Home, opens at Whatiftheworld this Thursday, September 3rd, and you should go look at it. People are always talking about how slick Rowan's work is, how well-made and impressive. Sometimes the word 'cool' even comes to mind. My favourite thing about his work, and especially this new body of work, though, is how sad it is. Whether this sadness exists as a wry bathos, misconstrued nostalgia or even quiet memorial (and all of the above appear in this new show), it's at the very core of Smith's production, and it's one of the things that gives his work the depth that other slick, cool and impressive art often lacks. After I am amazed by the vastness or shininess or floatiness of his pieces I can't help but be overcome by an overriding sense of loss and unease - not unlike the feeling of looking up at a dark night sky full of stars.

If You Get Far Away Enough You'll be On Your Way Back Home particularly considers the effect that space flight and expansion has had, and continues to have, on the public imagination. The work reminds us that it was not the close-up view of the surface of the moon that was the pivotal moment of space exploration, but rather the distant view of the earth, as small, whole and distant, that has left its mark on the human psyche*. And I promise that it's really good.

I'm not allowed to talk about any of the work until after the opening, so instead I found a video that some guy (Nir Lahav) posted on YouTube of David Bowie's Space Oddity with the original 1969 clip of Bowie and space films & animations from NASA. It's very sad, and pretty and certainly apt.

* yes, I'm quoting the press release, but I figure since I wrote it, it's ok