His work Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow is a multimedia composition of 760 drawings, photos, and paintings, one for each page of the novel's first printing. It was exhibited at the 2004 Whitney Biennial and is now owned by the Walker Art Center.[12]
Personal life
Smith lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York until October 2007, when he moved to Los Angeles. He was formerly in a long-term relationship with adult industry performer Mandy Morbid.[13] Smith describes himself as an anarchist.[14][15][16]
Sexual abuse allegations
Due to allegations of abuse by several women including Morbid, Wizards of the Coast announced in February 2019 they would be removing all references to Smith from the print and digital editions of Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition.[17][18][19][20][21][22]Kenneth Hite, a former RPG collaborator, apologized to the women and said he would donate the proceeds from their upcoming book to a non-profit addressing domestic violence. OneBookShelf announced it would no longer work with Smith and would donate revenue generated from existing titles with Smith to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. Smith was also banned from attending Gen Con.[17] Smith denied the accusations and filed a defamation lawsuit against Morbid.[23][24][25]
Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow (graphic representation of novel/illustration) (Portland, Oregon: Tin House Books, 2006). ISBN0-9773127-9-8
We Did Porn: Memoir and Drawings. (Portland, Oregon: Tin House Books, 2009). ISBN978-0-9802436-8-0
^YABLONSKY, LINDA. "Punk Portraitist: On the Backs of Photographs, Zak Smith Plays with Slick Surfaces to Make Likenesses of Surprising Detail and Depth." ARTNews, vol. 102, no. 8, Sept. 2003, p. 96.
^Trice, Emilie (October 15, 2007). "Anarchy in the U.K."artnet.de. Retrieved January 5, 2015. This month, the 31-year-old artist, anarchist and porn star has a solo show at Fred in London.
^Tsjeng, Zing (July 28, 2014). "Stoya selects Zak Smith". Dazed Digital. Retrieved January 5, 2015. The self-described anarchist landed his monumental page-for-page artistic interpretation of Gravity's Rainbow in the Whitney Biennal at 28, then landed his first adult film role in Barbed Wire Kiss.
^Hellings, David Paul (September 13, 2015). "An Interview with Zak S". SFF World. Archived from the original on March 2, 2019. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
^"411MANIA". Wizards of the Coast Issues Statement About D&D 5E Contributor Zak Smith Following Abuse Allegations. Archived from the original on July 4, 2020. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
^Lucard, Alex (December 26, 2011). "Diehard GameFAN's 2011 Tabletop Gaming Awards". Diehard GameFan. Archived from the original on February 13, 2019. Retrieved March 16, 2019. With Vornheim you are really getting two products in one: a dark urban fantasy setting where the skin on snakes used as books and a simple but effective city generation system. When you combine the two, you end up with a book that transcends game editions and provides a memorable backdrop for any gaming session.
^ abHelton, Christopher (August 1, 2015). "Bleeding Gen Con: Two Of The Best Four Days In Gaming". Bleeding Cool. Archived from the original on December 15, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2019. The shocker of the awards was Zak Smith's A Red & Pleasant Land, published by Finnish small press publisher Lamentations of the Flame Princess, winning 2 gold and 2 silver ENnies, including Best Writing and Best Setting.