Nature and culture, intellect and body, beauty and transience are the conditions of the human being that Kiki Smith examines in her work. He reveals the fragility of the body while exploring the individual's relationships with animals and the environment.
The "procession" exhibition, in the Lower Belvedere, brings together around ninety works to build a spiritual, intellectual and mythical cosmos. This provides an insight into his artistic work spanning from the early 80s to the present day.
While the exhibition-event places emphasis on sculptures, works on paper and tapestries will also be on display. Figures and stories follow one another in a ceremonial parade that underlines the power of images and their charismatic qualities. Smith's sometimes radical pictorial inventions and abundance of different materials create an unrivaled body of work and are truly pioneering for a younger generation of artists. His work touches on important themes of existence.
The title Procession comes from the Latin word to proceed, a reference to marching forward, advancing, or taking action. The exhibition opens with Smith's early works, which emerged under the influence of shifting sociopolitical and cultural shifts shaped by AIDS and the discourse on sexuality, gender and feminist activism. Unrestricted by taboos, discomfort and the limits of shame, his research on the body (especially the female) illustrates the conditio humana – the human condition.
In his objects and drawings, he features individual body parts, including the foot, arm, ear, tongue, and organs such as the stomach and intestines, or carefully labeled vessels containing supposed bodily fluids, such as urine, semen, saliva, blood, sweat or tears. The inside of the body faces outwards. Life-size figures made of beeswax (Virgin Mary, 1992) or of paper and horsehair, as in the human figure hanging on the wall (Untitled, 1995), show the naked and helpless body. Smith thus subverts conventional notions of femininity: the woman appears neither as a desirable object nor as an idealized idol.
Beginning in the early 90s, Smith devoted himself to extracting themes from stories, myths, legends, fairy tales and religious beliefs. He now incorporates his subject matter, his physicality and his social experiences, into a larger context, examining the relationship of the individual to nature and the environment. Sumptuous tapestries and sculptures create a universe that reflects the close bond between man and animal.
In his works, which include depictions of dead animals, particularly birds and extinct species, Smith addresses our endangered creation. His crows – Untitled (Crows) (1995/2016) – black and lifeless, their bodies scattered on the ground, bear witness to an ecological disaster.
