Artist presentation
Kiki Smith is a German American artist, She was born in Nuremberg Germany on
january 18 1954 She is known for her prints, sculptures, and drawings. Her father ( Tony Smith) was
an artist and her mother Jane was an opera singer. Kiki’s work deals with themes of mortality, sex,
birth and regeneration, she works in bronze, aluminum, wax, bodily fluids. Although Kiki has
stated that her work does not stand for anything or mean anything she just follows it and waits to see
what happens. when she was younger she describes her family as the addams family: they lived in a
big house that had a tombstone with their name on it, children at school called her and her sisters
witches, she always felt like she was surrounded by death , her father had a lot of relics of his dead
parents in the house like teeth or their old clothes. Later on when her father and sister died Kiki
became interested in theres of mortality and the human bodys anatomical form. Kiki has also stated
that she is interested cultural narratives and reproducing them and giving them different versions of
their story, letting the characters live a different version of the original. Something that can be seen in
her repeated recreations of Genevieve with the wolves. She created prints of Genevieve standing
with the wolves but then moved into Genevieve developing a relationship with the wolves. This is
also seen in her sculpture Lilith. Kiki Smith celebrates us being here in this form the beggings and the
ending of things.
