Opening reception for the artist: Thursday, December 14, 2006, 7 – 9 pm
Kiki Smith in conversation with Atul Dodiya and Gieve Patel: Saturday, December 16, 4 pm at the Little Theatre, NCPA
We look forward to welcoming you at the opening of Kiki Smith’s solo exhibition in our gallery on December 14, 2006.
The exhibition comprises a new body of drawings in ink on Nepalese paper, with silver leaf and glitter applications. To cite Robert Storr in his essay for the exhibition catalogue: “At the opposite pole from these dense, weirdly vulnerable but also palpably repellent alter egos, are the delicate also approaching life-size figures she draws in quavering lines and hatchings that recall the sketches of adolescent girls contemplating a mysterious, at once alluring and alarming womanhood. In such works the meatiness of wax gives way to the brittleness of papers embodying the fragility of sheerest vellum or parchment. Several of the women in them appear with markings on their arms, shoulders and feet similar to those actually worn by the artist, suggesting that these are self-portraits, or at least the likenesses of individuals within a sisterhood. Meanwhile the dried integument quality of the support lends the drawings the overall look and feel of huge, shimmering, silvery tattoos, though the sometimes insistently indented, rubbed or smudged pencil marks introduce an abrasive tactility quite different from the sting of the tattoo needle, evoking the subtle irritability of sensitized skin".
The exhibition also includes a selection of prints and books on exquisitely varied paper, ranging from the fragile hand-made Japanese to the heavier mold-made Hahnemühle. Over the years, Smith has employed various techniques including woodcut, etching, aquatint, and photogravure, combining these with applications of chine colle, watercolor, collage and glitter. The exhibition demonstrates her innovative approach to printmaking, while including iconic images such as 'Moth' (1996), which depicts the upturned head of a woman, from whose open mouth a moth emerges.
Kiki Smith was born in 1954 in Nürnberg, Germany, and lives in New York City. An internationally acclaimed artist, her solo exhibitions include Kiki Smith: Homespun Tales, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, 51st Biennale di Venezia, Venice, 2005; Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980–2005, organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and presently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (through February 2007); Kiki Smith: Prints, Books & Things, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2004; and Kiki Smith: Realms, PaceWildenstein, New York, 2002.
On December 16, a slide presentation and artists’ discussion with Kiki Smith, Atul Dodiya and Gieve Patel, will be held at the Little Theatre, NCPA.
