Kiki Smith

LEEAHN Gallery Seoul is pleased to present a retrospective of Kiki Smith (American, b. 1954, Nuremberg, Germany) from October 2 to November 12, 2014. Mostly having addressed human body, philosophy and society since 1979, she has been acknowledged as a leading figure among artists dealing with spiritual aspects of human nature. As a sculptor representing contemporary art and feminist artist over three decades, Kiki Smith is having the first local retrospective of her 12 artworks featuring bronze sculptures, reliefs and stained glass conveying her ideas and thoughts from the late 1990s to the present.

Her themes relevant to human body and feminism are profoundly associated with gender, homosexuality and fear for AIDS arising as a major discourse in the art world back in the 1980s. At that time, Kiki Smith keeled over traditional expressions of male artists who would view female body aesthetically, and drew attention by exposing grotesque images of female reproductive organs. With the demise of her father Tony Smith in 1982 followed by that of her sister who had been afflicted with AIDS in 1988, she came to have a keen interest in human body.

The artist has highlighted female body and existence socially and historically oppressed and dismissed as passive beings in a variety of media including sculpture, printmaking, drawing, installation and textiles. In the 1970s she visualized female body and its experiences, and then since the late 1980s she has straightforwardly exposed some injured or fragmented body parts and excrements or body’s internal organs oozing out. By means of warped boundaries of organs, that is, an entirely collapsed somatic hierarchy, the artist expostulates about everything patriarchal, which parallels in feminism or emancipation of women. Representing the intention of women to redeem their human dignity, equality and freedom from oppression, Kiki Smith herself values her being a feminist artist. In the 1990s, Kiki Smith embarked upon engravings using traditional paper, accentuating narrative attributes borrowed from nature, classic religious myths, fairy-tale animals and other objects as part of a continuum from her principal themes covering ‘life, death and regeneration, while exploring women’s life and subjectivity as well as the interrelationship between humans, animals and nature. Since "Sojourn" in 2010, her works have been considered to pursue something original and contemplative.

'Pyre Woman Kneeling' (2001) on display depicts a woman kneeling down and stretching out both arms. She lifts up her head with arms wide open against the sky as if crying out for help toward God, regarding which the artist says the woman is reminiscent of Jesus Christ crying out with a loud voice, saying “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Her arms outstretched appear pitiful but convey her disobedience. 'Medusa' (2004) is a bronze sculpture cast capturing a human figure emptily standing with both arms lowered in order, where the artist herself became the model of this full-sized sculpture. A stained-glass sculpture star 'Behold' gives out rainbow hues seen from different angles. Kiki Smith started to use glass from the mid-1980s, and has created a broad range of stained glass sculptures. The artist depicts historical and mythical women, probing into feminist themes. 'Behold' is a homage to an American-born French dancer, singer and actress Josephine Baker (1906-1975), who lived intensely as an artist fighting for equality.

Born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1954 as a daughter of Tony Smith a minimalist sculpture representing the 20th century, Kiki Smith grew up far from formal art education. When young, she entered the world of art naturally while assisting her father with sculptures. Then, as a constructed sculptor, she borrowed the themes of her works from her personal background of Catholicism, myths and tales. In 1976, she moved to New York and worked for a while as an underground artist before presenting her works through group exhibitions at the White Columns, the Artists Space, the PS1 and other commercial galleries. In 1982, she had her first solo exhibition "Life Wants to Live", at The Kitchen in New York, and became an internationally acclaimed artist via the "Projects 24" at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1990. In 2010, she had large-scale "Sojourn" at the Brooklyn Museum and "Lodestar" at the Pace Gallery following solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2006), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art(2005) and the MoMA(2003). She also participated in significant group exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennale (1991, 1993 and 2002) and the Venice Biennale (1993, 1999, 2005 and 2009). Smith’s many accolades include, most recently, the U.S. State Department Medal of Arts given by Hillary Clinton (2012); Theo Westenberger Women of Excellence Award (2010); Nelson A. Rockefeller Award, Purchase College School of the Arts (2010); Women in the Arts Award, Brooklyn Museum (2009) and the 50th Edward MacDowell Medal (2009). Smith was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York in 2005. In 2006 TIME Magazine named her one of the “TIME 100: The People Who Shape Our World.” Her work can be found in numerous public collections around the world, including MoMA; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, England). Kiki smith lives and works in New York City.

LEEAHN GALLERY