SHINIQUE SMITH

“Smith's National Portrait Gallery installation, No Thief to Blame was commissioned as a response to a new poem by Nikki Giovanni, the 64-year-old Godmother of Rap. The poem is called "It's Not a Just Situation: Though We Just Can't Keep Crying About It (For the Hip-Hop Nation That Brings Us Such Exciting Art)," and it's broadcast over speakers and printed on one wall in the gallery Smith's work shares with it. Giovanni's verses include such phrases as "You are Just / If there is any / Justice / Trying to find a way of not / Just surviving but living" and "You are just / trying to say 'I'm Alive.' "

They inspired Smith to include the following in her assemblage, which cascades from one corner of the room: A torn Tupac Shakur T-shirt, collaged photos of dead hip-hoppers such as Aaliyah, Jam Master Jay and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (along with similar homages to dead fine artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Harding), images of roses torn from a movie poster for "Youth Without Youth," a cardboard-cutout butterfly, a plastic "Heavyweight Wrestling" trophy belt, gold plastic beading hanging from the ceiling, swirls of illegible writing done right on the wall (in that sumi ink), lengths of red ribbon, blue shoelace and yellow caution tape stretched across a window embrasure as well as a pair of high-heel pink mules that sit demurely in the middle of the mess.

For the Portrait Gallery's more traditional visitors, all this street-inspired art, with its street-sourced supplies, is bound to come across as absolutely up-to-date. But the installation's street-smart maker sees it differently. Smith feels the piece is full of "nostalgia and romance for the past" -- for the era when she, and American culture at large, first began to feel hip-hop's impact.” - Blake Gopnik, Washington Post, 2007