Kiki Smith
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. 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. Life, death, and resurrection are thematic signposts in many of Smith’s installations and sculptures.
Welcome to the twilight zone. Kiki Smith might just be one of the creepiest artists I have ever encountered. From the (really creepily made) video interview (link below) of her life and her work, I have deduced that Kiki Smith is slightly unstable and might have family wounds and past hurts that haven't been dealt with or healed. Her interests are a little strange, which is fine but all of them come through in her art work because she has made art everything in her life. Maybe that is what is so strange about it. She makes sense of the world by putting her own brokenness out into it through art. Her art passes beyond the span of opinion and commentary. It is a way of life, a way of speaking out the inner hurt and deep feelings that she is trying to make sense of.
Maybe not, but that's just me expressing my opinion:) The video is a little long, but very interesting if you want to check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aRhXY0wQiE&feature=player_embedded
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. 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. Life, death, and resurrection are thematic signposts in many of Smith’s installations and sculptures.
Welcome to the twilight zone. Kiki Smith might just be one of the creepiest artists I have ever encountered. From the (really creepily made) video interview (link below) of her life and her work, I have deduced that Kiki Smith is slightly unstable and might have family wounds and past hurts that haven't been dealt with or healed. Her interests are a little strange, which is fine but all of them come through in her art work because she has made art everything in her life. Maybe that is what is so strange about it. She makes sense of the world by putting her own brokenness out into it through art. Her art passes beyond the span of opinion and commentary. It is a way of life, a way of speaking out the inner hurt and deep feelings that she is trying to make sense of.
Maybe not, but that's just me expressing my opinion:) The video is a little long, but very interesting if you want to check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aRhXY0wQiE&feature=player_embedded
No comments:
Post a Comment