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21/3/2002

Kiki Smith

Galerie Fortlaan 17, Gent

'What it feels like for a girl'

In the early 1990s Kiki Smith caused quite a stir with her work about the human body. At that time Aids was spreading rapidly, as was puritanism and, in its wake, censorship, promoted by the then republican government. The social context lends Kiki Smith's work a strongly political dimension. Though the artist reduces the body to what it really is - a self-sustaining system of organs and bodily fluids - it is obvious that for Kiki Smith the body is not merely physical. The spiritual power and vitality that surface from these works illustrate that the body is more than just matter subject to laws and patterns.

In the mid 1990s the artist increasingly emphasizes the spiritual and mythical aspect in works like Hive, Standing and White Mammals (sculptures which were on view in Galerie Fortlaan 17 in 1999). Kiki Smith focuses expressly on nature, the animal world, the universe and the position of women in fairy tales, myths and religious narratives. She calls attention to the intuitive, the chaotic, the organic and the creative, all of which have been treated as insignificant in our rational Western culture. That is precisely the culture that has systematically advanced expectations that women had to live up to. The attempt, however, to turn all women into obliging, faithful and devout mothers has always been resisted by those women who declined to obey.

'Eve's biting into the apple is an essential element of the story of the Creation. The consequence of her disobedience is not original sin: her act rather inaugurates the spiritual development of humankind. Eve's decision to taste the apple is the right one. She wants to evolve and therefore she tastes the fruit of the tree of knowledge. She refuses to remain in her place, but chooses to go her own way.'

Kiki Smith views the curiosity of women, their sexuality, their strong bond with nature and their predisposition towards mysticism as positive qualities. Her virginal, but rebellious Virgin Mary and her self-conscious Lilith demand the right to self-determination with regard to their own body, and refuse to give up their female qualities. In Woman on Pyre Kiki Smith confronts us with a woman who is on the point of being executed. She spreads her arms and kneels down in a subdued attitude. On the one hand she makes us aware of the subservient position to which women have been reduced; on the other hand she is self-possessed, declining to deny her bond with that which has invariably been regarded the archetype of femininity, e.g. mysticism.
In several narrative works, e.g. Geneviève and the Wolves, women and animals figure as companions. In these works Kiki Smith depicts all sorts of animals which play a prominent part in various cultures and are often fraught with strong symbolic meanings. A preliminary study of stuffed animals in museums of natural history always precedes the actual creation of the works. The artist portrays the animals as shy and primitive beings. This approach is very different from the usual contemporary view of animals, which is characterized by alienation and sentimentality.

'A lot of my work is about living through the shame of being a female in public. There's an enormous amount of shame attached to your gender; nothing speaks to your experience in the culture. It's the internalized self/cultural hatred of feminine stuff. To me it's much more scary to be a girl in public than to talk about the digestive system. ... I've been punished more for being a girl than I've been punished for having a digestive system.'

Kiki Smith's work is mainly about how she experienced growing up from a girl into womanhood. The references to the story of Little Red Riding Hood in some works relate to the fact that the awakening sexuality in the young girl causes both fear and yearning. In the series Witch Photographs, in which Snow White's stepmother becomes the victim of her own scheming and dies with the apple still in her hand, the artist herself figures as an old, ugly witch, whose sexuality and fertility is withering. However, in another image of this series, the artist, sweeping the pavement, is tenderly portrayed as a vulnerable woman.

Kiki Smith rejects an idealized world view. Instead, she creates her own universe in which she presents us with an exceptional combination of wryness and poetry, beauty and pain. She mingles childish wonder with mature wisdom of the world in works that cannot possibly leave anyone indifferent. Their material beauty is amazing, though sometimes hard to digest.

Text: Ellen De Jans, art historian
Translation: D.Verbiest

Bibliography:
E. DE JANS, Het abjecte voorbij ? Recent werk van Kiki Smith [Beyond the Abject? Recent work by Kiki Smith], unpublished MA thesis, Ghent University, 2001.
L. RIDNER, Kiki Smith: Matrix/Berkeley 142, Catalogue of the exhibition in the University Art Museum (February 6 - April 14, 1991), Berkeley, California, 1991.
H. POSNER, Kiki Smith : Telling Tales, Catalogue of the exhibition in the International Center of Photography (March 29 - June 10, 2001), New York, 2001.

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
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KIKI SMITH
°1954 Born in Nuremberg, Germany
Lives and works in New York

1990-1991
Projects 24: Kiki Smith, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Kiki Smith, Centre d' Art Contemporain, Geneva ; travels to Institute of Contemporary Art, Amsterdam
1991
Kiki Smith: Matrix/Berkeley142, University Art Museum of Calefornia, Berkeley
1991-1992
Kiki Smith, Galerie Rene Blouin, Montreal
1992
Kiki Smith : Silent Work, MAK - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna
Kiki Smith, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
1992-1993
Kiki Smith: Unfolding the Body, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; travels to Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix
Kiki Smith, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts ; travels to Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus
Kiki Smith, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica
1993
Fawbush Gallery, New York
1994
Kiki Smith, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark ; travels to Künstnernes Hus, Oslo
Kiki Smith, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1994 -1995
Kiki Smith, The Power Plant, Toronto
1994-1996
Prints and Multiples 1985-1993, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston ; travels to twelve venues in the United States.
1995
Kiki Smith, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Londen ; travels to Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague
Kiki Smith: Sculpture and Drawings, Anthony d'Offay Gallery, Londen New Sculpture, Pace Wildenstein, New York
1996
Kiki Smith: Landscape, Hundington Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston
1996-1997
Kiki Smith, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ; travels to Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Paradise Cage: Kiki Smith and Coop Himmelb(l)au, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
1997
Reconstructing the Moon, Pace Wildenstein, New York
1997-8
Kiki Smith: Convergence, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
1998
Directions Kiki Smith : Night, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Kiki Smith, The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
Invention/Intervention: Kiki Smith and the Museums, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Kiki Smith: All Creatures Great and Small, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover
1999
Kiki Smith, Galerie Fortlaan 17, Ghent, Belgium
Kiki Smith: You Are The Sunshine of My Life..., The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
Kiki Smith, Indianapolis Museum of Art
Kiki Smith: Of Her Nature, Pace Wildenstein, New York
1999 - 2000
My Nature: Works with Paper by Kiki Smith, The Saint-Louis Art Museum
2001
Kiki Smith: Telling Tales, International Center of Photography, New York
Kiki Smith, small sculptures and large drawings, Ulmer Museum, Ulm
2002
Kiki Smith, Pace Wildenstein, New York
Kiki Smith, Galerie Fortlaan 17, Ghent, Belgium

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Vernissage on Friday March 22 between 7 p.m and 9.30 p.m at Galerie Fortlaan 17 in presence of the artist.

Image: Kiki Smith, Girl with cat, 1999, 62 x 50 cm

Hours: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday : 2 - 6 p.m and Saturday: 10.30 a.m - 6.30 p.m.
Closed on March 30, 2002 and May 9, 2002
May 1 - 4, 2002: only by appointment

Galerie Fortlaan 17
Fortlaan 17
B 9000 Gent
T.: +32 (0)9 222.00.33
F.: +32 (0)9 221.63.27

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