I was fortunate this weekend to stop by Kiki Smith’s Sojourn on the recommendation of an illustrator friend of mine.
It was a brief respite from the snowy landscape to find a particularly warm and spring-like world within the walls of the
In an interview with Chuck Close some years ago, Kiki Smith said,
“I like that art is accumulative by nature, that you are physically creating the world, making physical manifestations of the world, and that you are in one sense, responsible for the world, for the image you’re making it in.”
Smith has always been expert at creating worlds within a world. Her delicate pencil drawings on tissue paper and larger than life-size aluminum sculptures (some of which she incorporates into the nearby period rooms of the museum’s decorative arts wing) tell a story through suggestion rather than narration. As a visitor, you find yourself instantly enveloped.
Smith drew her inspiration from an eighteenth century needlework, which is included in the show, called The First, Second and Last Scene of Mortality. It is remarkable for its time as it depicts the cycles of a woman’s life from birth to death not by milestones of marriage and childbearing, but through her creative pursuits.
Her sculptures and drawings are beautiful and telling portraits of characters that are timeless but very familiar. They are surprisingly accessible yet multilayered works that blend perfectly art and craft.
Brooklyn Museum: Kiki Smith: Sojourn
Christine Cavallomagno
Comments