Renowned Artist Kiki Smith to Visit Holy Cross

The College of the Holy Cross will present “Kiki Smith in Conversation” on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. in Brooks Concert Hall. Smith, an American artist, will talk about her work which deals with highly relatable issues of everyday life as well as a wide range of feminist concerns. The event is free and open to the public.

Smith, born in Nuremberg, Germany, is the daughter of an American sculptor and was introduced to art at a young age.  Vigorously independent, she pushed the classic paradigms of modernist art to create her own definitions.

Since 1980, the main inspiration for Smith’s work has been the human body. “I think I choose the body as a subject, not consciously but because it is the one form that we all share, it’s something that everybody has their own authentic experience with,” says Smith.

Smith, currently based in New York City, focuses on the individuality of each human being’s experience while recognizing the interdependence of human relationships. Her sculptures and paintings make reference to the organic and biological state of human nature with a narrative capacity that speaks to the many transitions of human existence such as youth, aging, life, death, containment, release, sensuality, and biology. These themes are often addressed with reference to traditional religious imagery. Smith depicts the power and vulnerability of the human body through these transitional states.

Smith also pushes the confines in respect to the different materials she employs for her artwork. She frequently transgresses the traditional notions of the hierarchy of materials and utilizes mostly “low art” or craft-like materials. She prefers homemade and natural materials because it allows her to transform the mundane into the enchanted. One of her earlier works titled Hand in a Jar consisted of a dead hand put in a jar filled with fish water. The algae produced by the hand created a multifaceted dynamic to the artwork which was natural and organic on its own. Even when Smith works with traditional “high art” mediums such as bronze, she generally brings in her own decorative elements or adds color to the surface to efface any remnant of the purity of materials. In the same way, she always controverts ideal form, breaking up flowing curves of her specific subjects as a way of rejecting traditional expressions and to focus on areas of anxiety and the uncomfortable.

While Smith is best known for her sculptures, she has also produced a myriad of prints, drawings and installations. Smith's work is on display in many renowned museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

The event is sponsored by the visual arts department, the Iris B. Cantor Art Gallery and the Women’s and Gender Studies concentration.