Kiki Smith (American, born January 18, 1954) is a German-born sculptor known for her works that deal with bodily themes, abjection, and sexuality.
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Her father was minimalist sculptor Tony Smith and her mother was Jane Lawrence, an American actress and opera singer working in Germany at the time Kiki was born. Born into a family of artists—her father was the Minimalist sculptor Tony Smith (American, 1912–1980), and her mother the opera singer Jane Lawrence Smith—she was raised in New Jersey. Smith is constantly building and doing: house-painting, carpentry or electrical work, rendering quick sketches, knitting, making art. Kiki Smith is a contemporary American artist best known for her figural representations of mortality, abjection, and sexuality. […] Kiki Smith is generative and genuine, and, like a King Midas, everything she touches turns into art. Wojnarowicz worked with Smith on a performance which she recorded and used in her first solo exhibition, Life Wants to Live, in New York at The Kitchen in 1982.10 The following year, Smith and Wojnarowicz collaborated on a series of prints. View Kiki Smith’s 863 artworks on artnet. Her artistic lineage also claims her grandfather, who was an altar-carver.
Find an in-depth biography, exhibitions, original artworks for sale, the latest news, and sold auction prices. 1983 Contributes an untitled screenprinted poster (plate 5) to the New York subway-poster campaign Subculture, organized by Group Material, a socially engaged artists’ collective. Her work varies in medium, size, and material.
First one-person exhibition, the multimedia installation Life Wants to Live, at The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance and exhibition space in SoHo, New York.
See available prints and multiples, sculpture, and works on paper for sale and learn about the artist. These Untitled works have three distinct elements that are interrelated. Kiki Smith was born in 1954 to American parents living in Nuremberg, Germany.
Sculptor, painter, printmaker, videomaker, photographer, she has been an artist all her life. “Kiki Smith: a gathering, 1980-2005” 50 Copy quote You can have fantasies about having control over the world, but I know I can barely control my kitchen sink.