Kiki Smith

Kiki Smith  (b. 1954, Nuremberg, Germany) is an American artist whose psychologically charged figurative sculptures and prints have made her a pivotal figure within contemporary art. Life, death, and resurrection are thematic signposts in Smith’s expansive oeuvre, which extends to sculpture, painting, printmaking, textiles, installation, and photography. Using imagery drawn from myth, folklore, and her own personal constellation of references, Smith excavates the body, foregrounding its intrinsic properties while presenting it as a site of transformation.

Smith has been the recipient of numerous solo shows, including an exhibition of her printed work at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2003 and a retrospective at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis in 2005. The same year, to coincide with the 2005 Venice Biennale, Smith exhibited Homespun Tales at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice. In 2008, she presented Her Home, a site-specific installation in collaboration with Museum Haus Esters, the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, which then toured to the Kunsthalle Nürnburg and the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona. In 2016, the International Sculpture Center awarded Smith their Lifetime Achievement Award.