Kiki Smith: A Gathering

There are just a few weeks left now to see Kiki Smith: A Gathering: 1980 - 2005 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. This show (which has been traveling around the U.S.) is the first full-scale American museum survey of the career of one of our most innovative artists -- and one whose work often falls into the realm of the mythic and fantastic.

Kiki Smith, the daughter of the post-war artist Tony Smith, was born in Germany in 1954 and raised in New Jersey in a household where Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko, and other artists were frequent visitors. Settling in New York after one year of art school, a three month course of Emergency Medical Technician training focused her attention on the human body as a major source of inspiration for her art. Her interest in depicting the female form led, in turn, to an exploration of feminine figures in myth, folklore, and Biblical stories -- an exploration that ranged across many media, including sculpture, printmaking, and installation art.

The curators of the Whitney show have noted that the natural world also played a significant role in the development of Smith's art, "with may works based on landscape, the cosmos, and the historical and spiritual connections between humans and animals. Smith has incorporated birds extensively in her work, and has also turned her attention to a wide array of other creatures, frequently depicting wolves, deer, cats, owls, bats, mice and other animals drawn from the contexts of religion, literature, and folklore.

"More recently, Smith has explored storytelling as a subject matter, separating characters from their traditional narratives, as she weaves together elements from fairy tales, folklore and myths to create evocative pieces that invite multiple interpretations."

Visit the Whitney Museum website for more information on the artist and on the exhibition, which runs until February 11, 2007. You can also see a Flash Slide Show of the exhibition (and listen to commentary about it) on the Minneapolis Public Radio website, which profiled Smith's work when A Gathering was exhibited at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

I also recommend Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, & Things, a Flash Slide Show on the MoMA website, created for a previous exhibition of Smith's work. The slides are divided by subject: Early Screenprints, Anatomy, Self-portraits, Nature, and Feminine Contexts. About the latter topic, the curators write: "Smith's feminine subjects have ranged from Egyptian goddesses and classical Greek nymphs to Biblical figures and heroines in fairy tales, reflecting her voracious study of art and culture across continents and epics."

This description could also easily be applied to Marina Warner's work, which we profiled on this blog yesterday. So it should come as no surprise that Warner, along with Siri Engberg and Linda Noclin, wrote the text for the book that accompanies the Whitney exhibition: Kiki Smith: A Gathering (1980-2005). Also available is Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, & Things, with text by Wendy Weitman. Both books are handsomely designed and presented.

Comments

[Saralinda LugoHart]

I admired Kiki Smith work. I'm really sorry to have missed the exhibition at the Whitney museum. Do you know of any gallery that my have some of her work on display? I would greatly appreciate the info.

Thank you, Saralinda

[Midori]

The best I can suggest is start here:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/smith/index.html
This is PBS Art 21 show that had a number of video and slide shows on Kiki Smith. The other is a MoMa site that also has a virtual exhibit of her work and you can find that here:
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2003/kikismith/

[Anjan Bhattacharyya]

Dear Sir,

I want some slide show which based on power point or flash, the subject based on Inspiration and self development.
Thanks

Anjan