|
 |
General Collection |
Kiki
Smith
German / American, born 1954
My
Blue Lake, 1995
photogravure with lithograph
43 ½ x 54
¾
|
|
Kiki Smith is a feminist multi-media
artist who, for the past twenty years, has explored the body
from inside to outside, conflating the borders between the two,
and has helped to restore the human body to a central place in
contemporary art. Though western art has long been fascinated
with the human body, especially the female body, the body parts
she is interested are not typically found in art. She examines
body functions and parts that are culturally taboo and embarrassing.
Many of her works are body fragments, such as prints taken from organs or a porcelain
pelvis on a pedestal. Blood, fluids, sperm, tears all appear in her works as
emotionally charged elements. Her art is messy, open, uncomfortable. It is indecorous
rather than polite, personal rather than official, unpredictable rather focused,
meandering rather than goal oriented. Her figures bridge the gap between seductive
beauty and grotesque body, open, leaking, uncontained.
A gift
of Perri and Allie Blitz, the children of Catherine Woodard and Nelson Blitz,
Jr.
|
|
