Kiki Smith
Self-Portrait
1995
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Kiki Smith
Self-Portrait
1995
Physical Qualities
Gelatin silver print, Sheet: 354 x 278 mm. (13 15/16 x 10 15/16 in.)
Image: 225 x 151 mm. (8 7/8 x 5 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Photography Fund
Object Number
1998.100
Forthright and unabashed, Kiki Smith presents herself bare-breasted as both sculptor and sculpture. Her plaster-spotted hands and studio clothes affirm her commitment to serious work while her head, concealed by papier-mâché or plaster, appears to be on its way to becoming a portrait bust. Wet material drips down from her neck and shoulders embellishing her female form. Smith has no use for the harmonious idealized proportions of classical art. Instead, she creates sculptures that reflect the bodies of actual women and offers them unedited for the viewer’s inspection.
Known primarily as a sculptor, but also active as a printmaker, Smith works in materials as diverse as paper, wax, bronze, ceramic, glass, and aluminum. Here she has produced a photographic self-portrait that simultaneously evokes the substances and processes of her art-making in other media.
Seeing Now: Photography Since 1960
Posner, Helaine. Kiki Smith, Boston: Bulfinch Press/Little, Brown and Company, 1998.
Barbara Krakow Gallery, Nancy Stapen. Kiki Smith prints and multiples, 1985-1993 (Boston: Barbara Krakow Gallery, 1994) Exhibition Catalog: Barbara Krakow Gallery, et. al. [CLGet], #24, p. 36.
Barbara Krakow Gallery, Nancy Stapen. Kiki Smith prints and multiples, 1985-1993 (Boston: Barbara Krakow Gallery, 1994) Exhibition Catalog: Barbara Krakow Gallery, et. al. [CLGet], #24, p. 36.
Inscribed: verso in black ink: "Kiki Smith 1996"