Artist: Kiki Smith

Kiki Smith is a multidisciplinary artist, working in sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, objects, stained glass and tapestry. Her body of work has developed with remarkable coherence for over four decades. Far from fragmenting her output, this diversity of media instead reveals a strong underlying theme that runs through her practice: the continuity and unity of life. Humans, animals and plants are linked in an unbroken chain, stretching from the microcosm of the cell to cosmic infinity. A thread that the artist can draw from observing the bark of birch trees near her home, the pigeons in Manhattan’s parks, a full moon and the Milky Way, but also from reading Lewis Carroll, an anatomy book, the poetry of Emily Dickinson, tales and legends... From all this, with utter sincerity—because she cannot do otherwise, she says—she crafts and weaves a visual narrative that grows ever stronger and richer with time.

This exhibition marks the artist’s tenth show at Galerie Lelong, the continuation of a 25-year collaboration. It brings together bronze sculptures, two large stained-glass windows, drawings and an imposing print. The artist has chosen the title FLIGHT. It therefore comes as no surprise to find birds with multiple symbolic meanings in this exhibition: majestic eagles, messenger doves and clairvoyant owls. As is often the case with Kiki Smith, nature acts as a mirror for humanity. The artist projects the feelings that drive her—fears, desires or dreams—onto these animal figures.

Kiki Smith was born in 1954 in Germany. She has lived and worked in New York since the 1970s. Her work is featured in numerous collections, including those of MoMA, New York; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Britain, London; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

A major exhibition, Être ici | Maintenant | Partout, will be dedicated to her from June 13th at MO.CO. in Montpellier.