Artist: Kiki Smith
Title: Bronze Pelvis
Medium: Bronze
Size: 3.75" x 2.5" x 2.5”
Year: 1993
Edition: X/15
Inscription: Signed on bottom
Condition: Museum quality
Documentation: Includes Gallery Certificate of Authenticity
“Bronze Pelvis” focuses on many of the themes present throughout Kiki Smith’s work, including death, sexuality, and the human body. Created in 1993, “Bronze Pelvis” has an intentionally timeless quality, injecting a prehistoric and historical element into a piece of modern art. The choice of bronze medium further enriches this timeless quality. Much of Kiki’s Smith is meant to challenger the viewer, yet her “Bronze Pelvis” manages to straddle the difficult line of a provocative work of art that still retains aesthetic interest making it feel at home in a range of private collections. Kiki Smith’s “Bronze Pelvis” is signed by the artist and comes with a gallery certificate of authenticity.
A master of many mediums, Kiki Smith’s most famous work focuses on the human figurative form. Her art features a variety of techniques including sculpture, painting, printing, textile work, photography, and drawing.
Kiki Smith was born in 1954, and is the daughter of famous sculptor Tony Smith. Although her father is best known as an abstract sculptor, Kiki Smith soon developed her own interested and style. Although she was born in Nuremberg, Germany, she moved to South Orange, NJ and grew up in the United States. Although she spent a short time studying at the Hartford Art School, Kiki Smith is primarily self-taught. After moving to New York City in 1976, she quickly became a fixture of the burgeoning New York art scene at the time alongside David Hammons and Jenny Holzer.
Kiki Smith’s work uses the human body as a literal reference as well as a metaphor for the themes in her work, most often mortality, sexuality, and abjection. During the 1980’s, Smith’s work typically featured single parts of the human body, like the pelvis. During the 1990’s, her work evolved to often feature the entire human form. The dark and complex themes of Kiki Smith’s work coupled with their stark form can be challenging for many viewers. Like much of contemporary art, Kiki Smith’s work is meant to be provocative, focused on commentary above aesthetic beauty. Smith’s groundbreaking and innovative work has pushed forward the dialogue of contemporary art. Her art is featured in a number of museums worldwide, including the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
