Artist Sable Elyse Smith Explores Time and the Carceral System in New Austin Exhibit

Smith's largest institutional show to date, "Clockwork," aims to unsettle and immerse visitors in a visceral experience.

Mar. 12, 2026 at 1:22pm

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Artist Sable Elyse Smith is bringing her largest institutional exhibition to date, "Clockwork," to The Contemporary Austin. The show pulls together Smith's longstanding interests in time, spectacle, and the prison industrial complex, using a range of mediums from video to kinetic sculptures to create an embodied, unsettling experience for visitors. In a conversation with her friend Jeremy O. Harris, Smith discusses how she's manipulating time and materials to elicit physical and emotional responses, drawing inspiration from sources like police chase shows and the writings of Christina Sharpe.

Why it matters

Smith's work grapples with the quiet brutality of the carceral system, using the language of horror and spectacle to unsettle viewers and push them to confront these issues on a visceral level. As a prominent artist, her exploration of these themes in her largest institutional show to date provides an important platform to engage the public in critical conversations around mass incarceration and its societal impacts.

The details

In "Clockwork," Smith utilizes a range of mediums to create an immersive, disorienting experience for viewers. The video work is "super dense, it's visceral, it is quite sharp and jarring," manipulating time in unexpected ways. Meanwhile, the kinetic sculptures, including a slow-moving Ferris wheel, create a sense of unease through their static yet animated qualities. Smith has also incorporated repeating forms to evoke ideas of accumulation and "doing time" in carceral spaces. The show is spread across two floors, with one level being "super frenetic and dense" and the other more "quiet," though the stillness ultimately becomes "loud" as well.

  • Smith is currently installing the exhibition at The Contemporary Austin.

The players

Sable Elyse Smith

A New York-based artist whose work explores themes of time, spectacle, and the prison industrial complex. "Clockwork" is her largest institutional exhibition to date.

Jeremy O. Harris

A playwright and friend of Sable Elyse Smith who interviewed her about the "Clockwork" exhibition.

The Contemporary Austin

The museum hosting Sable Elyse Smith's "Clockwork" exhibition, her first show in Texas.

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What they’re saying

“I am putting everybody inside of something that actually is quite difficult, or it could even create physical discomfort. There are all these optical illusion techniques in the show that literally hurt your eyes the longer you look at them--”

— Sable Elyse Smith, Artist (Interview Magazine)

“Making is almost like a second language, and reminding myself of that helps me think through the immediacy, and also in trying to be future-oriented with other people and creating new languages, but for however long we are here or any of it is here for.”

— Sable Elyse Smith, Artist (Interview Magazine)

What’s next

The "Clockwork" exhibition will be on view at The Contemporary Austin from March 12 to June 30, 2026.

The takeaway

Through the immersive, unsettling experience of "Clockwork," Sable Elyse Smith aims to confront viewers with the realities of the carceral system and push them to grapple with these issues on a visceral level, rather than just an intellectual one. Her work demonstrates the power of art to unsettle and provoke critical reflection on pressing social concerns.