Situated in a provocative, thematic environment designed by Rick Owens, the exhibition centers on seventeen contemporary artists and designers' responses to a 19th century smoking set made by the French jeweler Boucheron— a beautiful but troubling art object with a complex history relevant to many of the issues we encounter today, including attitudes towards the idea of "intoxication" as well a pervasive fear of, yet inexplicable attraction to, the "Other."
 
SMOKE is an exploration of past vs present attitudes towards 'substance use,' broadly termed, as leisure, as luxury, as medicine, and as criminalized behavior. It also directly addresses biases towards class and race that our culture's ever-evolving attitudes constantly both deconstruct and propagate. We’re staging the exhibition in partnership with the Last Prisoner Project specifically within the context of the current push for the legalization of cannabis, the rapidly shifting legal landscape surrounding it, and the ways in which its criminalization reinforces the systemic oppression of people of color and marginalized communities.
 
The Last Prisoner Project (LPP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to cannabis-related criminal justice reform, with a focus on helping individuals currently or previously incarcerated for non-violent, cannabis-related convictions. As the United States moves away from the criminalization of cannabis, giving rise to a major new industry, there remains the fundamental injustice inflicted upon those who have suffered under America’s unjust policy of cannabis prohibition. Through intervention, advocacy, and awareness campaigns, the Last Prisoner Project works to redress the past and continuing harms of these inhumane and ineffective laws and policies.
 
100% of Jason Jacques Gallery's profits from contemporary art sales will go to the Last Prisoner Project.
 
Participating artists and designers include: Katsuyo Aoki, Paul S. Briggs, Rem Denizen, Shinichiro Kitaura, Anne Marie Laureys, Roberto Lugo, Gareth Mason, Shari Mendelson, Johannes Nagel, Rick Owens, Aneta Regel, Isaac Scott, Eric Serritella, Kim Simonsson, Bente Skjøttgaard, Chase Travaille, Nick Weddell.