Lecture free and open to the public.

an artist's sources

KIKI SMITH

Wednesday 6 February 2008
5:00–6:30 pm

Harrison Auditorium, Penn Museum
3260 South Street, Penn Campus
(accessible from 34th Street entrance)

"Basically, art is just a way to think," says acclaimed feminist artist Kiki Smith. "It's like standing in the wind and letting it pull you in whatever direction it wants to go."

Listen in as one of the most influential artists of her generation speaks about the influences on her work.

Presented in association with the exhibition, "The Puppet Show" at Penn's Institute of Contemporary Art, January 18–March 30, 2008, in which Ms. Smith is one of the 27 participating artists.

Time magazine calls Kiki Smith one of America's greatest artists. She is, says Chuck Close, the "epitome of innovation, invention and unique personal vision." Always diverse, her work is, he says, "by turns magical, quirky, sexy, humorous, poignant, scatological and mesmerizing. . . It helps to hang next to a great artist."

Best known for provocative depictions of the female body in materials as diverse as bronze, paper, and wax — both in anatomical fragments and in full figure — Kiki Smith has explored many subjects: religion, folklore, mythology, natural science, art history, and feminism. Intimate yet universal, visceral yet fragile, her art reveals the figure in frank, nonheroic terms, expressing both its vulnerability and its strength.

In addition to her work as a major sculptor, she is a prolific printmaker and photographer. Her work appears in such major museum collections as New York's Guggenheim, Whitney, and MoMA, as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Smith lives and works in New York City.

Suggested Reading

Kiki Smith collection at...
	Guggenheim Museum
	Museum of Modern Art
	Whitney Museum
	NYT Review
	NPR Profile (audio)
Kiki Smith on art:21—"art in the twenty-first century," PBS Kiki Smith on Wikipedia. Kiki Smith in Mumbai, India in conversation at artconcerns.com