Malcolm Mobutu Smith
American
Malcolm Mobutu Smith is a ceramic artist and educator currently serving as Associate Professor of Ceramic Art at Indiana University in Bloomington. His multidisciplinary practice blends traditional ceramic processes with influences from street culture, music, and digital media, resulting in work that is both formally inventive and conceptually layered.
Smith earned his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1996, after completing a BFA in ceramics at Penn State University in 1994 and earlier studies at the Kansas City Art Institute. A committed educator and contributor to the field, he regularly presents lectures and leads workshops, with past residencies including Haystack Mountain School of Craft, the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, and the Robert McNamara Foundation.
His work has been exhibited widely, including at the Luise Ross Gallery in New York City, and is represented in numerous private and public collections, such as the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, the FuLed International Ceramic Art Museum in Beijing, the Haan Museum, the Indiana State Museum, and the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taiwan.
Smith’s ceramic vessels and works on paper are shaped by improvisational strategies that play between volume and flatness, often merging wheel-thrown and hand-built forms. Drawing inspiration from graffiti, comic books, and abstract organic forms, his objects echo the improvisational ethos of Hip Hop and Jazz, serving as expressive artifacts of culture and identity. His creative research integrates CAD/CAM technologies, printmaking, and drawing, engaging questions of acculturation, ornament, and the aesthetics of hybridity—reflecting his own multifaceted cultural background.
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Malcolm Mobutu Smith
KnuckleUnder/KnuckleDown, 2023
H 19 in W 13 in D 12 in
$ 9,200
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Malcolm Mobutu Smith
Benevolent Manifestation Over the Land, 2021
H 16 in W 16 in D 11 in
$ 9,200
Access Trade Price
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