Smith's later work often examines aging. Excuse me!?! ... I’m Looking for the 'Fountain of Youth' (Greene Naftali/Tate Modern, 2015) was a sprawling project of drawings, videos, performance, photographs and a woven tapestry.Green, Kate. "Michael Smith," Artforum, October 12, 2019. Retrieved December 3, 2021. Its conceptual art-dance-performance piece distilled various late-life indignities—Mike's attempts at yoga, humiliating airport security searches, "encouraged" retirement, the feeling of invisibility—and included a surreal medieval dream sequence, in which an elixir reverts him from a knight into a court jester and then a baby, suggesting the futility of the titular search. Imagine the View from Here (Museo Jumex, 2018–9) critiqued the art world’s relationship to development and reflected on middle-class aging. Occupying the museum’s mezzanine, the exhibition presented tradeshow booths and promotional videos from Smith's long-running, fictional "International Trade and Enrichment Association" (ITEA) project offering art lovers (with Mike as surrogate) a faux, "Fully Curated Timeshare" in the museum as an investment and luxury destination.Green, Kate. "Michael Smith," Artforum, January 19, 2019. Retrieved December 2, 2021.Jauregui, Gabriela. "Flipping the Gaze: Exhibitions Around Mexico City," ARTnews, February 25, 2019. Retrieved December 3, 2021. Reviews described the work's sales pitch combining "the gleefully, ignorant optimism of Mike" and an "essentially underwhelming marketing display" as deadpan and bitingly satirical.
