Kiki Smith

The American artist Kiki Smith was born Chiara Smith in Germany. Her mother, Jane Lawrence, was an opera singer and actress, and her father was the Minimalist sculptor, Tony Smith. In 1976, Kiki Smith moved to New York, and began frequenting the rock music and artistic circles. Since the 1980s, she has been known for her multidisciplinary art work incorporating sculpture, etching, photography, drawing, books, tapestries and a variety of objects. One of the characteristics of her work is the representation of the human body, and particularly the anatomy and outline of the female body. This outline is sometimes shown at a disturbing angle, or is altered or fragmented. Kiki Smith has been the subject of a number of exhibitions around the world. In 2003, the exhibition “Prints, Books and Things”, held at the MoMA in New York, played an important role in her career. Between 2005 and 2007, a travelling exhibition, “Kiki Smith: A Gathering”, was presented successively at the MOMA in San Francisco, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston and the Whitney Museum in New York. In 2019, she was the focus of a number of solo shows: at the Monnaie in Paris, at the Sara Hilden Art Museum in Tampere, at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Modern Art Oxford and the Centre de la gravure in La Louvière. Her work has been presented at five Venice Biennales. Kiki Smith was commissioned by Obama Foundation to create a specific work for the Obama Presidential Center to open in Chicago in 2026. Galerie Lelong has exhibited the work of Kiki Smith since 2000.