Michael Smith at Richard Telles

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"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age"
reflects well the implicit anxiety of men and youth. Both predatory and pathetic.  Their "midlife crisis" or eyed with questions at playgrounds, office hours with required open doors. Then there's the "avuncular" Smith, like the guy failing to fill his quotas at the dealership. His softness a comedy. The aging man, while the youth remain.

See too:  Michael Smith at Greene Naftali

Michael Smith at Greene Naftali

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There's something just so sad about Michael Smith's work it's gross. It contains all the pathos of sodden cardboard, limp and dull in puddles And our repulsion from it only strengthens the abject pathos to it. We feel for Mike, for Baby Ikki, but we really don't want to be anywhere near him. The single middle-aged male unassimilated to normative culture leaves us feeling all sorts of weird, buying a ticket to Kidzania.