Kiki Smith is a contemporary American artist best known for her figural representations of mortality, abjection, and sexuality. With a special fascination with the body and bodily fluids, Smith often examines excreta such as blood, semen, and bile in carefully crafted sculptures that bear the influence of Surrealism.
Full Answer
What is Kiki Smith known for?
... Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, while recent works have depicted the human condition in relationship to nature.
What is Kiki Smith's aquatint process?
In the "Blue Prints" series, 1999, Kiki Smith experimented with the aquatint process. The "Virgin with Dove" was achieved with an airbrushed aquatint, an acid resist that protects the copper plate.
Who are Kiki Smith's parents?
[3] Smith's father was artist Tony Smith and her mother was actress and opera singer Jane Lawrence. [4] Although Kiki's work takes a very different form than that of her parents, early exposure to her father's process of making geometric sculptures allowed her to experience formal craftsmanship firsthand.
Why did Kiki di Paolo make her work?
Although Kiki's work takes a very different form than that of her parents, early exposure to her father's process of making geometric sculptures allowed her to experience formal craftsmanship firsthand. Her childhood experience in the Catholic Church, combined with a fascination for the human body, shaped her work conceptually.
What kind of art does Kiki Smith make?
Kiki Smith has been known since the 1980s for her multidisciplinary work that explores embodiment and the natural world. She uses a broad variety of materials to continuously expand and evolve a body of work that includes sculpture, printmaking, photography, drawing, and textiles.
What materials did Kiki Smith use?
Smith produces work in bronze, wax, paper, plaster, glass, and many other media. She believes that all artistic methods are equal in value and significance. There is no material too lowly for artistic use.
Why is Kiki Smith important?
The Legacy of Kiki Smith Kiki Smith was one of the first artists to distinguish figurative work within the art world after years of abstraction and Minimalism had dominated the scene. She is considered a pioneer in restoring the figure as acceptable subject matter in contemporary art.
What material is commonly used in the relief method?
The relief is the positive image and represents the printing surface. The most familiar relief-printing materials are wood and linoleum, but many other materials can be used, such as aluminum, magnesium, and plastics.
What medium did Kiki Smith use?
PrintmakingKiki Smith / FormPrintmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. Wikipedia
What are the elements of the arts?
There are seven elements of art that are considered the building blocks of art as a whole. The seven elements are line, color, value, shape, form, space, and texture.
Is Kiki Smith a feminist?
There is no part of it that has been left unexplored by the fearless American artist Kiki Smith, a pioneer of contemporary feminist art who has grappled with female beauty, shame, mortality and existence, right down to a woman's ribs and fingers and excrement and menstrual blood.
Who inspires Kiki Smith?
Smith was inspired by the works of James Joyce, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and Friedrich Nietzsche, among other writers. Smith did not exhibit his work until 1964, at age 52, when he was included as a relative unknown in the exhibition “Black, White, and Gray” at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.
Why is the lost wax process of casting suitably named?
Why is the lost-wax process of casting suitably named? The wax mold is melted away so that it can be replaced by the metal. Beginning in the 1960s artists began to create works of impermanent sculptures to explore what ideas?
How are relief prints made?
What is a relief print? Relief printing is when you carve into a printing block that you then use to press onto paper and make a print. The lines or shapes you carve into the printing block will not have ink on them, so will not show up on your paper.
What tools are used to make relief prints?
Tools used are usually steel gouges (U- or V-shaped cutting edges) or specialist cutting knives. Wood engraving: a relief print produced from a block of end- grain wood (traditionally a very slow-growing wood such as boxwood), into the surface of which the artist engraves a design, using fine, steel, cutting tools.
How do I create a relief print?
1:022:47DIY Relief Printmaking - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSo your first step is gonna be to cut your potato in half. Now. I'm going to work on using the knifeMoreSo your first step is gonna be to cut your potato in half. Now. I'm going to work on using the knife just to cut away any areas outside of my design that I don't want to be in the final. Print. Once
Which materials have commonly been used to represent the human figure in sculpture?
Some of the most popular materials in sculpting are bronze, in which sculptures are made by creating a mold which the bronze can be cast into; ceramic, or pottery clay; and marble, a stone that sculptors often use to depict the human body.
What influenced Kiki Smith?
Smith was inspired by the works of James Joyce, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and Friedrich Nietzsche, among other writers. Smith did not exhibit his work until 1964, at age 52, when he was included as a relative unknown in the exhibition “Black, White, and Gray” at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.
Why is the lost wax process of casting suitably named?
Why is the lost-wax process of casting suitably named? The wax mold is melted away so that it can be replaced by the metal. Beginning in the 1960s artists began to create works of impermanent sculptures to explore what ideas?
Who developed Contrapposto?
The Ancient Greeks first invented the Contrapposto stance in the early fifth century BC. It arose as an alternative to Greek Kouros sculptures, where figures are seen front on with even weight on both legs and one foot slightly in front of the other, which had a stiff, rigid quality.
What documentary is Kiki Smith in?
Kiki Smith working in her home as she discusses her chaotic artistic approach; from the documentary Kiki Smith: Squatting the Palace (2006). Checkerboard Film Foundation ( A Britannica Publishing Partner) See all videos for this article.
What is an opera?
Opera, a staged drama set to music in its entirety, made up of vocal pieces with instrumental accompaniment and usually with orchestral overtures and interludes. In some operas the music is continuous throughout an act; in others it is broken up into discrete pieces, or “numbers,” separated either by recitative…
Where was Jane Lawrence born?
The daughter of the American actress and opera singer Jane Lawrence and the American architect and sculptor Tony Smith, she was born in Germany, where her mother had launched a career in opera. The family returned to the United States in 1955, and Smith was raised in South Orange, New Jersey.
Who is Kiki Smith?
Kiki Smith, (born January 18, 1954, Nürnberg, Germany), German-born American sculptor, installation artist, and printmaker whose intense and expressionistic work investigated the body and bodily processes. The daughter of the American actress and opera singer Jane Lawrence and the American architect and sculptor Tony Smith, she was born in Germany, ...
Who is James Yood?
James Yood was Associate Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He also taught contemporary art theory and criticism at Northwestern University,...
What type of paper did Kiki Smith print?
Smith printed the image in black ink on 36 attached sheets of handmade Thai paper. MoMA and the Whitney Museum both have extensive collections of Smith's prints. In the "Blue Prints" series, 1999, Kiki Smith experimented with the aquatint process.
What is the name of the sculpture that is made of cross-hatched planks and cast-bronze birds?
For the Claire Tow Theater above the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Smith conceived Overture (2012), a little mobile made of cross-hatched planks and cast-bronze birds. In 2019, Smith conceived Memory, a site specific installation for the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art on the Greek island of Hydra.
Where did Kiki Smith exhibit?
In 1996, Smith exhibited in a group show at SITE Santa Fe, along with Kara Walker. In 2005, "the artist's first full-scale American museum survey" titled Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980-2005 debuted at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Then an expansion came to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis where the show originated.
What is Lilith in the gallery?
Lilith is an arresting figure, hanging upside down on a wall of the gallery. In 2005, Smith's installation, Homespun Tales won acclaim at the 51st Venice Biennale. Lodestar, Smith's 2010 installation at the Pace Gallery, was an exhibition of free-standing stained glass works painted with life-size figures.
How many Jacquard tapestries does Smith have?
Since the early 2010s Smith has created twelve 9 x 6 ft. Jacquard tapestries, published by Magnolia Editions. In 2012, Smith showed a series of three of these woven editions at the Neuberger Museum of Art. In early 2019, all twelve were exhibited together as part of "What I saw on the road" at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Italy. Smith notes that the tapestries provide an opportunity to work at a larger scale ("I never thought I could make a picture so big") and to work with color, which she does not frequently do otherwise.
Where is the Smith solo show?
In 2019 the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, Austria, presented a solo show of Smith entitled "Processions", presenting about sixty works from the last three decades.
Where is the Whitney Museum of American Art?
The exhibition traveled to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and finally to La Coleccion Jumex in Ecatepec de Morelos outside Mexico City. In 2008, Smith gave Selections from Animal Skulls (1995) to the Walker in honor of Engberg.
What does Kiki Smith talk about?
Kiki Smith talks about the roles that her family, domesticity, and death play in her work.
Where is Kiki Smith from?
Kiki Smith was born in 1954 in Nuremberg, Germany. The daughter of American sculptor Tony Smith, Kiki Smith grew up in New Jersey. As a young girl, one of Smith’s first experiences with art was helping her father make cardboard models for his geometric sculptures. This training in formalist systems, combined with her upbringing in the Catholic Church, would later resurface in Smith’s evocative sculptures, drawings, and prints. The recurrent subject matter in Smith’s work has been the body as a receptacle for knowledge, belief, and storytelling.
What is the figurative tradition of Smith?
In the 1980s, Smith literally turned the figurative tradition in sculpture inside out, creating objects and drawings based on organs, cellular forms, and the human nervous system. This body of work evolved to incorporate animals, domestic objects, and narrative tropes from classical mythology and folk tales.
Who is Kiki Smith?
Wikipedia article. References. Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, while recent works have depicted the human condition in relationship to nature.
Who is Kiki Smith's father?
Smith’s father was artist Tony Smith and her mother was actress and opera singer Jane Lawrence. Although Kiki's work takes a very different form than that of her parents, early exposure to her father's process of making geometric sculptures allowed her to experience formal craftsmanship firsthand.
What type of paper did Kiki Smith print?
Smith printed the image in black ink on 36 attached sheets of handmade Thai paper. MoMA and the Whitney Museum both have extensive collections of Smith's prints. In the "Blue Prints" series, 1999, Kiki Smith experimented with the aquatint process.
Overview
Work
Prompted by her father's death in 1980 and by the AIDS death of her sister, the underground actress Beatrice “Bebe” Smith, in 1988, Smith began an ambitious investigation of mortality and the physicality of the human body. She has gone on to create works that explore a wide range of human organs; including sculptures of hearts, lungs, stomach, liver and spleen. Related to this was her work exploring bodily fluids, which also had social significance as responses to the AID…
Early life and education
Smith's father was artist Tony Smith and her mother was actress and opera singer Jane Lawrence. Although Kiki's work takes a very different form than that of her parents, early exposure to her father's process of making geometric sculptures allowed her to experience formal craftsmanship firsthand. Her childhood experience in the Catholic Church, combined with a fascination for the human body, shaped her work conceptually.
Collaborations
Smith collaborated with poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge to produce Endocrinology (1997), and Concordance (2006), and with author Lynne Tillman to create Madame Realism (1984). She has worked with poet Anne Waldman on If I Could Say This With My Body, Would I. I Would. Smith also collaborated on a performance featuring choreographer Douglas Dunn and Dancers, musicians Ha-Yang Kim, Daniel Carter, Ambrose Bye, and Devin Brahja Waldman, performed by and set to A…
Exhibitions
In 1980, Smith participated in the Colab organized exhibition The Times Square Show. In 1982, Smith received her first solo exhibition, "Life Wants to Live", at The Kitchen. Since then, her work has been exhibited in nearly 150 solo exhibitions at museums and galleries worldwide and has been featured in hundreds of significant group exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial, New York (1991, 1993, 2002); La Biennale di Firenze, Florence, Italy (1996-1997; 1998); and the Venic…
Recognition
Smith's many accolades also include the Nelson A. Rockefeller Award from Purchase College School of the Arts (2010), Women in the Arts Award from the Brooklyn Museum (2009), the 50th Edward MacDowell Medal (2009), the Medal Award from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2006), the Athena Award for Excellence in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design (2006), the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture from the Skowhegan School of Painting and S…
Footnotes
1. ^ "Kiki Smith | American artist". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2016-03-05.
2. ^ Danielle Stein (October 2007), "The Glass Menagerie" Archived 2016-07-19 at the Wayback Machine, W; accessed April 1, 2015.
3. ^ Newell-Hanson, Alice (February 28, 2019). "Kiki Smith Shares a Glimpse Into Her World, in Photographs". The New York Times.
External links
• Media related to Kiki Smith at Wikimedia Commons
• Kiki Smith talks with Joseph Nechvatal about her Cave Girls film and The ABC No Rio Cardboard Air Band at Hyperallergic
• Kiki Smith at Barbara Gross Galerie