biography
Kiki Smith was born in 1954 in Nuremberg, Germany. She lives and works in New York.
Smith is a New York-based artist and a leading figure in the international art world. The human form, especially the female body, became central to her work in the 1980s. She began to focus on the themes of loss and death through her depiction of the body’s internal components, especially organs, cellular structures and the nervous system. The evacuation of these physiological components from the body presented anxieties surrounding the maternal body and the notion of the body as a receptacle for incorporeal components such as knowledge, belief and storytelling. By exposing its internal structures, Smith portrays the dichotomy between the psychological and physiological spheres of the body. In recent years, Smith’s work has evolved to incorporate animals, domestic objects and narrative tropes from classical mythology and folk tales. Her career, spanning more than three decades, is characterized by great experimentation with techniques and materials: she employs a wide-range of non-traditional materials ranging from hair and latex to beeswax and gold to a diverse body of media that includes painting, photography, bookmaking, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking.
Kiki Smith was born in 1954 in Nuremberg, Germany. She lives and works in New York.
Smith is a New York-based artist and a leading figure in the international art world. The human form, especially the female body, became central to her work in the 1980s. She began to focus on the themes of loss and death through her depiction of the body’s internal components, especially organs, cellular structures and the nervous system. The evacuation of these physiological components from the body presented anxieties surrounding the maternal body and the notion of the body as a receptacle for incorporeal components such as knowledge, belief and storytelling. By exposing its internal structures, Smith portrays the dichotomy between the psychological and physiological spheres of the body. In recent years, Smith’s work has evolved to incorporate animals, domestic objects and narrative tropes from classical mythology and folk tales. Her career, spanning more than three decades, is characterized by great experimentation with techniques and materials: she employs a wide-range of non-traditional materials ranging from hair and latex to beeswax and gold to a diverse body of media that includes painting, photography, bookmaking, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking.
Kiki Smith select solo exhibitions include: Kiki Smith: Free Fall, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul (2022); Kiki Smith: From the Creek, Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico (2022); Inner Bodies, Fondation Thalie, Brussels (2022); Kiki Smith. Hearing You with My Eyes, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (2020); Kiki Smith, Monnaie de Paris, Paris (2019); Kiki Smith: Procession originated at the Haus der Kunst, Munich and traveled to the Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland and the Belvedere, Vienna (2018); Musée d’Art Moderne, Saint Etienne (2013); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2009); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2007); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2005); Museum of Modern Art in New York (2003).
Her work has been included in group exhibitions such as: Nian Nian - The Power and Agency of Animal Forms, Deji Art Museum of Jiangsu, Nanjing (2023); Feminine power: the divine to the demonic, The British Museum, London (2022); Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy: Mare Nostrum, Venice Biennale, Complex of the Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Penitenti Fondamenta Cannaregio, Venice (2019); The Moon From Inner Worlds to Outer Space, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk and traveled to Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2019); Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300–Now), The Met Breuer, New York (2018); The American Dream: Pop to the Present, British Museum, London and traveled to Fondation Custodia, Paris, France (2018).
Smith’s works are included in numerous prominent museum collections, such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tate Gallery, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Her work has been included in five Venice Biennales (2019, 2017, 2009, 2005, 1993).
gallery exhibitions
images
Empath 036, 2022
Watercolor and crayon on kitakata paper
44,5 × 50,8 cm
Empath 017, 2022
Watercolor and crayon on kitakata paper
44,5 × 50,8 cm
Empath 097, 2022
Watercolor and crayon on kitakata paper
44,5 × 50,8 cm
Empath 086, 2022
Watercolor and crayon on kitakata paper
44,5 × 50,8 cm
Capture, 2016
Crayon on handmade laid paper
40 × 59,1 cm; 48,8 × 67,5 cm framed
Bombalurina, 2022
Hand painted laser cut shina plywood
20,6 × 35,6 × 16,2 cm
Posie, 2022
Hand painted shina plywood
30,8 × 33,3 × 16,2 cm
Cousin, 2016
Hand painted laser cut shina plywood
42,9 × 35,9 × 16,2 cm
Heart in Hand, 2015
Hand painted laser cut shina plywood
31,1 × 28,3 × 16,2 cm
Send, 2016
Blackened bronze
36,2 × 91,4 × 30,5 cm overall with base; sculpture: 35,6 x 76,2 x 12,7 cm; pedestal: 101,6 x 91,4 x 30,5 cm
Surge, 2016
Blackened bronze
37,5 × 76,2 × 30,5 cm overall with base; sculpture: 36,8 x 56,5 x 7,6 cm; pedestal: 101,6 x 76,2 x 30,5
Haunted I, 2012
C-print
64,8 × 54 cm
Haunted II, 2012
C-print
64,8 × 54 cm
Haunted III, 2012
C-print
64,8 × 54 cm
Untitled (Geneviève and the May Wolf), 2000
Chromogenic color print mounted to board
33,7 × 49,5 cm
Untitled (Autumn), 2000
Chromogenic color print mounted to 2-ply board
33,7 × 48,9 cm
Untitled (Calling), 2000
Chromogenic color print
50,8 × 40,6 cm
public exhibitions
MTA Arts & Design
Grand Central Madison
New York City
River Light; The Presence; The Spring; The Sound; The Water's Way
Photo: Anthony Verde
CityLife Park, ArtLine Milano Public Art Project
Milan, Italy
Guardiane
Photo: Alberto Fanelli
National Museum of Modern Art
Zagreb, Croatia
Gloria: Croatian Female Artists Salute Kiki Smith
25.11.2021 – 28.1.2022
Photo: Goran Vranić
MCBA Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts
Lausanne, Switzerland
Kiki Smith. Hearing You with My Eyes
9.10.2020 – 10.1.2021
Photo © Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne / Étienne Malapert
Storm King Art Center
New Windsor
Kiki Smith River Light
15.7 – 9.10.2020
Photo: Jeffrey Jenkins
Monnaie de Paris
Paris
Kiki Smith
18.10.2019 – 9.2.2020
Photo: Martin Argyroglo / Monnaie de Paris
Modern Art Oxford
Oxford
I am a Wanderer
28.9.2019 – 19.1.2020
© Modern Art Oxford. Photo by Ben Westoby.
Belvedere
Vienna
Kiki Smith: Procession
7.6 – 15.9.2019
Photo: Johannes Stoll, © Belvedere, Vienna
Sara Hildén Art Museum
Tampere
Kiki Smith: Procession
9.2 – 12.5.2019
Photo: Jussi Koivunen / Sara Hildén Art Museum
DESTE Foundation Project Space
Slaughterhouse
Hydra
Kiki Smith: Memory
18.6 – 31.10.2019
Photo: Eftychia Vlachou
Haus der Kunst
Munich
Kiki Smith: Procession
2.2 – 3.6.2018
Photo: Maximilian Geuter
press
Scoprire Kiki Smith a Milano
Interviews with Raffaella Cortese, Gabi Scardi and Roberto Pinto.
ArtsLife
February 17, 2023
Artist Kiki Smith: ‘We all know we are in a precarious situation’
Financial Times
October 11, 2019
Kiki Smith e Alejandro Cesarco alla Galleria Raffaella Cortese
L'Officiel Italia
January 22, 2018
I Myself Have Seen It: Photography and Kiki Smith, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary art, Arizona
Aesthetica
March 30, 2012
publications
Kiki Smith
Silvana Editoriale
Milano
2019
Kiki Smith. What I saw on the road
Giunti Editore
Florence
2019
Kiki Smith - Procession
Prestel
New York
2018
Kiki Smith: 2000 Words
DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art
Athens
2018
video
When fantasy meets popular folklore: Artist Kiki Smith’s work on display in Paris
2019
Video by France24 on the occasion of Kiki Smith's solo exhibition at Le Monnaie de Paris – 11 Conti
I Make Things to Experience the Process
2014
TateShots
