Mark Niblock-Smith

About Mark

Mark Niblock-Smith was a Los Angeles-based artist who died of AIDS-related cancer in 1993. Mark had just turned 35 years old.

Niblock-Smith was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, and moved to Los Angeles in 1980. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Otis/Parsons Art Institute in 1984 and his Master of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts in 1987. He had received grants for his AIDS-related public art projects from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Mark was also an educator at Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena.

Mark’s fine art was exibited in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Norway and Germany. Silent Tear, an assemblage of steel, glass and crystal bead chain is featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. He created gallery installations and public artworks that addressed multiple facets of AIDS as well as such issues as homelessness and militarism. His work shifted to AIDS awareness after he was diagnosed HIV positive in 1986. The goal was to raise public consciousness so the government would intensify efforts to find a cure for AIDS. "As my physical body becomes weaker," Mark said, "my spiritual side becomes so much stronger." Dealing with AIDS "is not about dying, it's about living." He even said given the chance to have been HIV-negative and free of disease, he would accept the disease because it has helped him reach people with his art, and because of the spiritual lessons he has learned.

Mark’s installations were a powerful catalyst for AIDS awareness in the early days of an uncontrollable epidemic. His work provided an opportunity to humanize the AIDS epidemic and deal with more than just its horrors. The message of his exhibits was so striking they were later converted to bus shelter posters in Hollywood, MacArthur Park, Echo Park, Chinatown, West Los Angeles and Westwood. "Mark was an extraordinary artist who had an ability to give to the art viewing public a real view into the inner soul of the artist that you don't normally see," said Jeffrey Herr, a Municipal Art Gallery curator who worked with Niblock-Smith on LAX. He was doing something that was completely unique in and of itself to what other artists are doing. If he had worked for another 10 or 20 years, or the normal life span of an artist, I think you could have compared him to any artist."

By Kerry Smith (Purpose of the website)

In early June of 1981, I attended a family wedding with Mark in Southfield, Michigan. I thought this would be a great opportunity to show him my work since he was attending the highly regarded Otis Parsons Design School in California. I recall showing Mark several new pieces including an illustration of Kenny Rogers and several other pastel renderings. Much to my pleasure he was quite supportive of my work and encouraged me to continue drawing and to push boundaries. That encouragement was one of several reasons I eventually left my factory job and later attended graphic design school at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

After a number of years working as a graphic designer, I began to curate art exhibits and explore my own fine art career. During that time I became more intrigued with Mark’s accomplishments and decided to dig deeper into his career. After a few internet searches, I was surprised to find very little on such an accomplished artist. The searches led to a few articles in the LA Times and his obituary but little regarding his wonderful bank of work. I was baffled how an artist could have work in the prestigious Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles yet barely show up in an internet search.

Over the years I had collected several of Mark’s early paintings and a book titled “Personal Best.” With these resources I began to build a website that would showcase Mark’s powerful artwork and installations. To say the least, it was inspirational and emotional editing content, photos and reading details of his final days.

Mark was an extraordinary artist that dedicated his short life to AIDS awareness and to helping others. Please note nothing on this website site is for sale. The site is designed to expand and grow as we receive additional content. In the coming weeks we hope to add a photo gallery along with new artwork and content.

Thank you, Mark, for your early encouragement and enthusiasm. I am forever inspired by the power and purpose of your art. It is my hope this website gives you the long overdue recognition you so very deeply deserve.

By Roger Workman (From Personal Best)

It is sometime in 1992, around ten o’clock.  I am in the middle of our evening ritual.  I unhook the bag of Vancomycin and reprogram the electronic pump to drip the Foscavir, a drug we hope will inhibit the spread of his intestinal CMV, into Mark’s chest catheter.  Then I slowly peel away the catheter, saving what little chest hair he has left, and begin the regimen of sterilizing the area where the tubing snakes into his chest.  This is our fourth Hickman catheter; if this one becomes infected, he might not be able to tolerate another.  It is difficult to do the cleaning, because Mark, as is his habit, grasps my left hand and massages it gently.  He doesn’t take his eyes off my face.  Although it has been many years since he was diagnosed with HIV, he is still overwhelmed by the actual mechanics of his care.  The site clean, a new bandage perfectly centered, (as is my habit), I load a syringe with Demerol to relieve the burning of the Foscavir drip and put him to sleep.

But not tonight, he says, not just yet.  He mischievously grins and waves a thin cardboard box at me.  He opens it slowly and pulls out a set of proof sheets, photographs for his new art project.  I am eager to see these photos.  We have prepared for this installation for several months, stockpiling discarded containers of Mark’s medications and treatments.  A dozen boxes clog our stair landing.  But I am not prepared for what is to happen.

I stare at the photos, trying to find an identifying Mark.  I am confused.  I don’t know this image.  Covered only in a loin cloth, a tall, emaciated man stands, hands held high, the bones at his elbows and knees bulge, his head prickly and bald.  A catheter falls out of his chest and dangles loosely against his taut, gray skin.

As I stare, the image slowly becomes recognizable and a searing panic sets in.  The image in the photographs, the man whose body is so meager, the man I don’t recognize, is Mark. 

Mark tries to pull me into his process of selection (“Are the hands better in this one?  Or this one?”), delightedly pointing out the oddities in each image (“Are those my balls in that one?), but I cannot concentrate.  I hear his laughter around me, but all I can think is that this beautiful flesh that has brought him (us) so much pleasure is disintegrating, wasting away no matter how many gallons of TPN I infuse.  No matter what I do.

Mark’s body is now fragile and weak and I have not seen it.  Instead, I still respond to him as though he is every sinewy, sexually charged and vibrant.  I now realize that it is my memory of him, the strength of his all-encompassing spirit, that has become my lover and replaced the withering form in these pictures.

Older, supposedly wiser, I have played the role of mentor, advisor, sometimes protector to Mark.  But not tonight.  Our roles slowly begin to merge and for the remainder of his life, it will be Mark’s strength and insight from which I draw.  He now feels comfortable talking about his impending death for the first time.  When I object, he tells me he wants no bases left uncovered between us.  He is rounding third and heading Home.

From this night on, time becomes very dense.  Mark’s body betrays him in horrible, unpredictable ways.  His CMV puts him in the hospital at least once a month, he gets a fifth chest catheter (a fancy new French number), his cancer goes into remission, he develops a neuropathy that affects his equilibrium.

For our anniversary in September, I surprise him with a trip to London.  On the morning we are to leave, his temperature is 105°.  As I drive him to the hospital, he urges me to go alone.  To rest up, he says for what we both know is to come.

In January 1993, Mark turns thirty-five and I find two new lumps while kissing the back of his neck.  We drive to the hospital, a heavy silence between us.  We know.  The next day, his doctors present us with a new treatment regimen.  More drugs, more chemicals, more tubes, more needles, the hope of a few more months.  Mark smiles at them, massaging my hand as he tells them he is ready to go Home.

That night Mark and I lie on the hospital bed, facing each other, tangled in the half-dozen tubes that wend their way into his body.  We hold each other with an intensity that does not depend on physical strength.  We have little left.

I think Mark is asleep when he weakly asks me what I plan to say at his memorial.  I can only tell him this:  I am embarrassed to admit that twelve years ago I had no idea that the brash, precocious, highly amusing and somewhat insecure man I fell in love with would become the most heroic person I will probably ever meet.  Then I tell him how paralyzed I am by the pain of losing him.  He leans into me, murmuring apologies for the pain, his and mine.  It’s the part I hate the most, he says.  Then he asks if I would say something else.  I lean close to hear his shallow voice:  Tell them that your pain has already been felt by thousands of people.  Tell them there will be thousands more.  Then tell them, he wheezes, to do something about it.  He closes his eyes heavily; the telling wears him out.

A moment later, his eyes slowly open and he smiles at me.  For that one instant, his face is again pink and supple, his eyes clear and brilliant blue, his lips full.  Now he says, as he strains to kiss my forehead, it’s time for us to say good-bye.  I’ll start…

Mark is at our house ten days before he slips into a coma.  Around 10:00 p.m. on our final night, I sense a movement.  His head suddenly falls to the side, toward me.  His eyes, which have been locked into the back of his head, slowly descend.  For the briefest moment, he focuses deeply into my eyes.  In ways I cannot explain, it is the most sensual experience I have known.  It is also the most painful.  His eyes cloud and slowly flog back into his head.  He’s finally Home.  It is only his body that must give up and that takes four more hours.  My only salvation is he has no pain.  I carry enough for both of us.  That’s one base he couldn’t cover.

AIDS ended Mark’s life two years ago today.  As is often the case with HIV, he was killed by another opportunistic, ravaging virus, one that destroyed his lymph system.  But he was also felled by our government’s inadequate, homophobic response to this epidemic.

Nonetheless, Mark thought himself blessed and life at our house was usually far from somber.  What I now remember most about those last months isn’t the pain, but his laughter.  His all-consuming, straight-from-the-gut laugh.

Mark would be pleased that his retrospective is in the Armory, not only because he loved his time there as an educator, but also because this is an organization that is chock full of unsung heroes.  The courage and foresight of our dear friend, Executive Director Lisa Crystal and the Armory’s Board of Directors, allowed Mark to receive wonderful medical care and be able to devote the last years of his life to what he loved most, his art.  It seems only fitting that this show be dedicated in part, with belated thanks, to these fine folks.

Above all, however this show is dedicated to the memory of Mark.  The title Personal Best is apt (more so than my original working title, Mark Niblock-Smith:  The Only Years).  Thousands of people have died from HIV disease and have not been able to leave a physical trace of their existence.  Yet Mark lives on at his personal best in his art, in his writings, and in the memories of the hundreds of friends he brought into our lives.  Thank you for those twelve years, Mark.  It was a privilege and a pleasure.

If you knew him, I bet you still hear that laugh every now and then.