Sculpture and Drawings - Kiki Smith

Lorcan O'Neill Gallery, Rome
23 September 2010 - 25 November 2010
http://www.lorcanoneill.com
By Nicole Minatel

Walking into Kiki Smith’s current solo show at the Lorcan O’Neill Gallery feels like invading a stranger’s dreams. Everything, from the white walls to the terracotta floor of the gallery seems to have been created for the art that is there installed – a small, yet instigating collection of four aluminum sculptures, four large collages on Nepalese paper, three smaller drawings, two chairs and a mobile that allude to a common sensation of feminine, yet empty, romanticism. Furthermore, a dichotomy between alive and void is strikingly present in common elements such as beautifully colored flower bouquets and butterflies, that are contrasted with both real and imagined black twigs and sparrows and large empty spaces on the off-white Nepalese paper. These elements are usual in all mediums she utilizes, being fashioned in ink, glitter, pencil, bronze, gold and more. Also remarkable is that the human figures represent solely women, whose overall expressions are neither of sorrow nor joy, but rather a controlled peace that is quasi-comical due to their caricature–like bodies and unnatural colors (namely the large, black and silver women that seem to grudgingly greet one upon entering the space).
Born in Nurnberg, Germany in 1954, Kiki Smith grew up in the United States and was surrounded by art production from a young age, for her father was the late American minimalist sculptor Tony Smith. Kiki’s works, however, are set extremely far apart from the simple geometrical modules her father created, as she is instead known for an intense interest in corporeal reality and the various forms in which the body can be represented. Even before her first major show at the New York Fawbush Gallery in 1988, Kiki’s association with the Young British Artists movement and her “reputation for creating strange, quirky drawings, prints and sculptures that focused on bodily fluids, secretions, systems and parts began to surface” (Brown), sometimes loaded with political and religious messages, others just simply showing “fragments of the body to whole figures in the round, from miniature to the monumental, from neutral or natural coloration to bright and unfamiliar hues” (Brown).
The latter, simple presentation of the body and world through her own eyes is what one sees at the Lorcan O’Neill Gallery, where no political overtones are made explicit. Instead, other messages such as the handwritten “See” next to the figure of a pensive woman create the dreamlike aura that overcomes the gallery space and invites the viewer to ascribe essence to the work of art. In addition, the auspicious absence of wall labels, catalogs and any other form of information adds a feeling of purposeful anonymity that allows Kiki’s visions to become the viewer’s own reality, even if only for a fleeting moment of contact with the works. This possibility not only enhances the experience of visiting the gallery, but also renders the exhibition successful, as each person is thus able to imbue personal meaning into these images of bodies, that are meant to be, according to the artist herself, “receptacle[s] for knowledge, belief, and storytelling” (Art21).

Citations

Brown, Elizabeth A. University Art Museum. Santa Barbara, 1994. Print.

"Kiki Smith Biography." Art21. Web. 11 Oct. 2010.
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