Artist Kiki Smith is known for incisive works that explore our relationship with nature. We sat down with her in her studio in Upstate New York to discuss nature, gender equality, fashion, and T-shirts.
Kiki Smith spent the 80s in New York, where she made a name for herself with works centered around death and the body. Today, her pursuits focus more on our relationship with nature. Born in West Germany to the minimalist sculptor Tony Smith and the actress and opera singer Jane Lawrence, Smith grew up in New Jersey. She began her artistic career as a member of Collaborative Projects (Colab), a New York-based artist collective. Since opening her first solo exhibition in 1982, Smith has organized nearly thirty exhibitions around the worldーnotably a major retrospective featuring 100 of her works held last year at the historic Monnaie de Paris. There is an element of the unknown in her works, which can come off as both angelic and dangerous—a perfect reflection of our current era of instability.
Smith, who is attracted to the “absolute complexity” of nature, often depicts animals and plants in her works. “Nature is so overwhelming, that if I can just draw one little leaf, I feel like I’m ahead of the game,” she says. “Nature is all there is. It’s abundant, it’s interconnected, and it’s life itself. Everything else falls under nature; we’re all part of it, as is all the chaos we’re in right now. We’re finding out how interdependent we are and how all of our actions have ramifications.”
Smith’s Earth (top) and Sky (bottom) from 2010 are both large Jacquard tapestries. “I try to make the base design as detailed as possible, becauseweaving a picture always reduces its resolution,” Smith says.
Possession Is Nine-Tenths of the Law (1985), which portrays nine human organs without context.
Complex works produced through simple methods
Smith is known for her mixed media worksthat blend sculpture, printmaking, photography, drawing, and textiles. She prefers rudimentary production methods, manually tinkering with her work over and over again until it is complete. It’s a time-consuming process, but Smith says she appreciates it now more than ever, with the COVID-19 pandemic limiting her options.
“I’m a print teacher, and now with the pandemic, we have to teach everything without a press,” she says. “I have to teach my students very basic techniques like stenciling and rubber stamping. People can’t be in print shops, so you have to be able to make things with these very simple forms. But the thing is, you don’t need special knowledge or anything. Some people
think their work resides in their technique, but I don’t. I think it resides in you. All you need is concentration, perseverance, and the will to make corrections. It doesn’t have to be realistic, it just has to feel right to you.”
Three of Smith’s works will be featured in the OF THEIR NATURE T-shirt collection that Uniqlo is producing in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Gentle light enters the studio as Smith works on one of her many creations.
These wooden cat sculptures, each one in a distinctive pose, are just some of the many works in progress that decorate Smith’s studio. The detail in the fur is bound to captivate cat lovers.
Even the floor is covered in works in progress. This piece features prints of rock details that have been enlarged. All Smith has left to do is add color.
A beginning in T-shirt printmaking
Themed around gender equality and women artists’ depictions of forms in nature, the collection will also feature works by two other legendary female artists: Frida Kahlo and French sculptor Louise Bourgeois. Smith has always been progressive in her views, and her works offer perspectives on humanity that are not bound by gender. For example, Possession Is Nine Tenths of the Law (1985) presents prints of nine human organs without commenting on the people they were taken from.
“Gender equality—gender and nonbinary gender inclusion—is a very good thing to strive for, and that hopefully we will reach,” says Smith. “We’re certainly very far from that, but every year people make strides, and things do change. Museums are also making great strides in their cultural, racial, and gender inclusion. I think 2020 was a very difficult year in many aspects, but in many other aspects, great things have happened that bring new change.”
Right/Concordance. 2005 (dated 2006). IlRighlustrated book with 48 acrylic stencils and screenprinted text. overall (approx. ): 10 1/16 x 235 7/16" (25.5 x 598 cm); page (each, irreg.): 10 1/16 x 9" (25.5 x 22.9 cm). Publisher: Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, New Brunswick, NJ. Printer: Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, New Brunswick, NJ. Edition: 30. Acquired through the General Print Fund and the generosity of Marian and James H. Cohen.
Left/Sampler. 2007. Letterpress with ink and foil additions. composition (irreg.): 21 1/8 x 15 11/16" (53.7 x 39.9 cm); sheet: 24 x 15 3/4" (61 x 40 cm). Publisher: Arion Press, San Francisco. Printer: Arion Press, San Francisco. Edition: 40. Acquired through the generosity of Susan Jacoby in honor of her mother, Marjorie L. Goldberger and General Print Fund.
Smith has actually been printing T-shirts for years—in fact, they were her first “canvas” when she started printmaking in the 80s. “I saw a label on a box that said ‘corrosive,’ and it featured a logo of a vial being poured out onto something that was burning. I felt corrosive at the time— kind of a punk thing—so I printed these hazard symbols on T-shirts and sold them at bars.”
No surprise, then, that she is excited about the democratization of fashion over the last thirty years. “People have access to well- designed clothes that are affordable. That’s something that’s very important to the world. When I was a child, we bought clothes at the supermarket and you could tell they came from a supermarket—because we didn’t have money. Now, everyone can be well-dressed. That’s why I was so honored to be a part of this collaboration with UT. A T-shirt is such a great form—it gives you an immediate identity. And you can always change them a bit to personalize them.”
PROFILE
Kiki Smith | Smith was born in 1954 in West Germany, but her family moved to the US when she was just two. She began her artistic career at 22 in New York. She works out of her home studio in Upstate New York and teaches at Columbia University and New York University.
©2021 Kiki Smith
Project: 2021 by The Museum of Modern Art
