KIKI SMITH

“Art among many other things is a space where we can reanimate the past and see past the future.”
(Kiki Smith)

Born on January 18, 1954, as Chiara (“Kiki”) Smith in Nuremberg, she grew up in South Orange, New Jersey, with two siblings in an artistic and intellectual family. Her mother, Jane Lawrence Smith, was an opera singer and actress, and her father was Tony Smith, a sculptor and architect known for his minimalist sculptures.

From 1974 to 1975, Smith studied at the Hartford Art School in Connecticut and at San Francisco State University. In 1976, she moved to New York and joined an artist collective called Collaborative Projects (CoLab). The human body, anatomical works with severed body parts and organs, is the focus of these early works. The death of her father in 1980 reinforced this approach, the exploration of mortality and transience. Five years later, she worked for several months in the trauma surgery department at Brooklyn Hospital to deepen her anatomical knowledge. Influenced by the death of her sister Beatrice from AIDS in 1988, she began to depict entire bodies in their fragility and with a wide variety of materials instead of body parts and fluids. This creative period, with its radicalism that touched on taboos, reflects the social and cultural changes of the 1980s, the effects of AIDS, and the discourses on sexuality and feminism.

From the 1990s onwards, she increasingly focused on myths, fairy tales, religious traditions, and nature. Spirituality, melancholy, and the struggle with existential questions characterize this creative period. In 2005, she was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in 2006 she received an honorary doctorate from Bowdoin College in Maine, and in 2017 she was awarded the title of Honorary Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Her work includes drawings, etchings, lithographs, sculptures, photographs, videos, installations, and artist's books, as well as, more recently, tapestries. She uses a wide variety of materials such as beeswax, bronze, aluminum, synthetic resin, latex, plaster, porcelain, glass, paper, feathers, and ceramics.

“At first, my work was considered transgressive and radical, but later I came to believe that it was more dangerous and courageous to show things to which one feels a deep connection.” (Kiki Smith)

Awards (Selection)
2019 Austrian Decoration of Honour for Science and Art
2016 Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award
2012 U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts
2010 Theo Westenberger Women of Excellence Award
2010 Nelson A. Rockefeller Award
2009 50th Edward MacDowell Medal
2006 Medal Award, School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston
2005 Athena Award
2000 Skowhegan Medal

Solo exhibitions (Selection)
2019 Procession. Belvedere, Vienna
2018 Procession. Haus der Kunst, Munich
2017 Kiki Smith: Breath. Palau de La Música Ofeó Català, Barcelona
2017 Kiki Smith and Paper - The Body, the Muse and the Spirit. Oklahoma State University Museum
2016 Kiki Smith and Tony Smith: Masterpiece in Focus. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
2013 Musée d´Art Moderne, Saint Etienne
2012 Kiki Smith: Meravigliosa Creatura. Fondazione Mario Merz, Turin
2011 Rituals. High Museum of Art, Atlanta
2010 Kiki Smith - Color Still. Under Museum of Contemporary Art, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Italy
2010 Sojourn. Brooklyn Museum, New York
2008 Kiki Smith: Her Memory. Fondació Joan Miró, Barcelona
2008 Kiki Smith: Her Home. Kunsthalle Nürnberg
2007 Kiki Smith: A Gathering - 1980-2005. Whitney Museum, New York
2007 Kiki Smith: Constellation. Nelson-Atkin Museum of Art, Kansas City
2006 Kiki Smith: A Gathering - 1980-2005. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
2004 Kiki Smith: Prints, Books & Things. The Museum of Modern Art, New York
2001 Kiki Smith: small sculptures and large drawings. Ulmer Museum
1998 Kiki Smith: All Creatures Great and Small. Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover
1998 Concentrations 20. Dallas Museum of Art
1996 Kiki Smith. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
1994 Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebaek
1994 The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1992 Kiki Smith: Silent Work. MAK-Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
1992 Moderna Museet, Stockholm
1992 Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn
1991 Projects 24: Kiki Smith. The Museum of Modern Art, New York
1982 Life Wants to Live. The Kitchen, New York

Group exhibitions (Selection)
2017 Stars. LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz
2017 The American Dream: Pop to the Present. British Museum, London
2017 Venice Biennale
2015 Vienna for Art’s Sake. Winterpalais, Vienna
2015 America is Hard to See. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
2015 Rabenmütter (Raven mothers). LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz
2015 Flaesh. Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague
2014 Frauen – Liebe und Leben (Women – Love and Life). Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg
2014 Yes, No, Maybe: Artists Working at Crown Point Press. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
2014 Witches and Wicked Bodies. The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
2012 Kiki Smith, Seton Smith, Tony Smith. Kunsthalle Bielefeld
2012 Alice im Wunderland der Kunst (Alice in wonderland). Kunsthalle Hamburg
2011 The Luminous Interval. Guggenheim, Bilbao
2010 Lebenslust und Totentanz (Joie de vivre and Danse macabre). Kunsthalle Krems
2010 Keeping It Real - Act 1. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
2010 Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography. Museum of Modern Art, New York
2010 Elles@centrepompidou. Centre Pompidou, Paris
2009 Venice Biennale
2007 Traum und Trauma (Dream and trauma). Kunsthalle Vienna
2005 Venice Biennale
2004 Otherworlds: The Art of Nancy Spero and Kiki Smith. BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
2004 Carpe Diem Press, Oaxaca: James Brown, Dan McCleary, George Moore, Kiki Smith and Rob Wynne. Texas Gallery, Houston
2004 East Village USA, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
2003 Warum! Bilder diesseits und jenseits des Menschen (Why! Images on this side and beyond the human). Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
2003 Private Öffentlichkeit (Private public sphere). Galerie im Museum Folkwang, Essen
1997 documenta 10
1993 Venice Biennale

Bibliography (Selection)
2019 Rollig, Stella; Giloy-Hirtz, Petra (publisher): Kiki Smith – procession. Munich: Prestel
2019 Hering, Michael; Heid, Brigitta (publisher): Kiki Smith – Prints. Cologne: Verlag Walther König
2013 Ecker, Bogomir (publisher): Nur Skulptur! Berlin: Kehrer
2012 Meschede, Friedrich (publisher): Kiki Smith, Seton Smith, Tony Smith. Berlin: Kerber
2010 Brown, Elizabeth A.: Kiki Smith - Photographs. Munich: Prestel
2008 Hentschel, Martin (publisher): Kiki Smith: Her Home. Bielefeld: Kerber
2001 Reinhardt, Brigitte (publisher): Kiki Smith - Small Sculptures and Large Drawings. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz
1999 Haenlein, Carl (publisher): Kiki Smith, all creatures great and small. Zurich: Scalo
1992 Noever, Peter (publisher): Kiki Smith - silent work. Vienna: MAK