Unframed size is 20 by 22 inches (50.8 by 55.9 cm). Framed size is 24.5 by 26.75 inches (62.2 by 67.9 cm).
A composite of twelve tiled images, this whimsical color photograph from contemporary artist Kiki Smith depicts young swans and fish at home in an urban canal. "Untitled (Swans)" reflects the artist's interest in animals as emblems of spirituality.
Kiki Smith (American, born January 18, 1954) is a German-born sculptor known for her works that deal with bodily themes, abjection, and sexuality. 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 attended the Hartford Art School in Connecticut before moving to New York City in the 1980s, where she became an active member in the East Village art scene. From 1982, she has exhibited annually at the Fawbush Gallery in New York; her work received significant attention in 1990 during her exhibition for the Projects Room at the Museum of Modern Art. Although clearly familiar with Minimalism from a young age, her work is aligned more closely with the sculptures of female artists Louise Bourgeois (American/French, 1911–2010) and Eva Hesse (American, 1936–1970); two artists active in the Anti-Form movement, who created objects that defied traditional object-making. Smith’s Body Art sculptures ironically parallel the erotic representations of women in art history, and simultaneously expose constructions of gender and sexuality. Often the biological systems she recalls in her sculptures, including blood, semen, breast milk, and urine, serve as metaphors for the socially constructed nature of identity.
Selected Public Collections:
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
