Conversation with Kiki Smith : Inner Bodies — Transcript

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1. 0:19so good evening kiki smith
2. 0:22we are very proud and honored to present
3. 0:24the solo show inner bodies
4. 0:27at
5. 0:28foundation at the foundation telly in
6. 0:31brussels
7. 0:32and
8. 0:34we thank you for your trust and for
9. 0:36helping us to present this show
10. 0:39i hope we will have
11. 0:41the occasion to welcome you in brussels
12. 0:44who knows
13. 0:46in april
14. 0:48for spring
15. 0:49because the show is uh is on view until
16. 0:52the first may
17. 0:55so as i said we're gonna spell spend
18. 0:57like 30 30 minutes together 30 40 40
19. 1:01minutes
20. 1:02uh it's a very unconventional format as
21. 1:05you are
22. 1:06across the atlantic in digital and we
23. 1:08are here at the foundation in brussels
24. 1:11you know probably people in the in the
25. 1:13audience we have galleries partners
26. 1:17patrons
27. 1:18and collectors
28. 1:20so inner bodies combine a selection of
29. 1:22iconic works
30. 1:25such as your porcelains tapestry and
31. 1:28drawings along alongside bronze culture
32. 1:32dating from the
33. 1:332000
34. 1:34your desire to represent the maturity of
35. 1:37bodies is evident as well as cosmogony
36. 1:41so through cultures
37. 1:44your work has also been characterized by
38. 1:46a feminine pantheon
39. 1:48for nearly half nearly sorry half a
40. 1:50century
41. 1:52so if we we come back to our your
42. 1:54background kiki smith you were born in
43. 1:571954 in nuremberg
44. 1:59uh then you moved to new jersey new
45. 2:01jersey with your family and uh you
46. 2:04received a catholic education
47. 2:06with
48. 2:09[Music]
49. 2:12a catholic
50. 2:13no idea you didn't so you your father
51. 2:17tony smith
52. 2:18tony smith was a
53. 2:20sculpture a minimal sculpture uh
54. 2:24internationally renowned and your mother
55. 2:27was an actress and a singer this is uh
56. 2:30correct
57. 2:31yes okay
58. 2:33and uh in your work you evoke humanities
59. 2:37hard to accept finitude as much as the
60. 2:39immensity of the cosmos
61. 2:41where art becomes belief
62. 2:45you create a personal feminine mythology
63. 2:48which torches upon the purity of a
64. 2:51universal language
65. 2:53childhood
66. 2:55mythology terrors
67. 2:58including alice in wonderland
68. 3:00le petit chaperon rouge
69. 3:04and or female christ
70. 3:07so my first question will will be very
71. 3:09will be he is very simple how do all
72. 3:12these female characters come to you
73. 3:16over over the time
74. 3:18and maybe we can have some image
75. 3:21you know i would say
76. 3:23i don't know if you can understand me
77. 3:24but i would say um
78. 3:27figuration
79. 3:29is something that i kind of fell into by
80. 3:32mistake or not on purpose
81. 3:35um when i was younger and it's something
82. 3:38that comes and goes in my work
83. 3:42you know sometimes i'm interested in it
84. 3:44and sometimes not
85. 3:48and
86. 3:49how they appear
87. 3:53also comes and goes and doesn't have any
88. 3:55real rhyme or reason to it
89. 3:58i mean i first started making um
90. 4:02figures
91. 4:03because
92. 4:04um
93. 4:06i was interested in the different
94. 4:08systems of the body and then i had to
95. 4:11you know confront
96. 4:13the skin as one of the major you know
97. 4:15largest systems of the body largest sort
98. 4:19of organism of the body
99. 4:21and and
100. 4:23you know i started making sort of
101. 4:24abstracted
102. 4:27sculptures of skin like you know dealing
103. 4:30with the
104. 4:31surface area the human skin took up but
105. 4:34then
106. 4:36somehow because of that i fell into
107. 4:38figuration
108. 4:39and
109. 4:40i wasn't it wasn't really my plan
110. 4:43because i i found it
111. 4:46first i didn't think i particularly had
112. 4:47anything to
113. 4:49think or say about it but also
114. 4:52uh you know because immediately your
115. 4:55gender and age and race and
116. 5:00you know all these different things and
117. 5:02you know in all these different things
118. 5:04that are attached to to
119. 5:06people's outside physical experience
120. 5:09whether they're real or not real you
121. 5:11know or just social constructs but it
122. 5:13was something for me that i was trying
123. 5:15to
124. 5:16not participate in too much but
125. 5:18um
126. 5:19but i started by casting people's bodies
127. 5:23then i was mostly casting
128. 5:26my own a little bit or
129. 5:28my assistance or they're my assistant's
130. 5:31friends if they knew some friends
131. 5:34women were much more
132. 5:37readily
133. 5:38uh
134. 5:42agreeing to take off their clothes to be
135. 5:45cast that men were much less interested
136. 5:47in taking off their clothes so in a way
137. 5:49i just
138. 5:50you know i mean i wanted to make women
139. 5:52just because
140. 5:54it's my experience
141. 5:57in you know in being alive as a female
142. 6:00but
143. 6:01it was also just like who was there and
144. 6:03so for maybe 10 years or a little less i
145. 6:07just cast people's bodies
146. 6:10uh you know with plaster bandage and
147. 6:12then
148. 6:13uh you know made them into wax or to
149. 6:15plaster or to paper
150. 6:19and um
151. 6:20but then my
152. 6:22two assistants main assistants that i
153. 6:24had had left
154. 6:26um and then i just stopped doing that
155. 6:29because i didn't really have anybody to
156. 6:31work with anymore
157. 6:32um
158. 6:35and
159. 6:36i don't know when they left i just
160. 6:38stopped but and then and then after a
161. 6:41while i started making really like
162. 6:44like doll like you know doll
163. 6:46uh sculptures or puppet sculptures or
164. 6:50doll sculptures myself which was also
165. 6:52something like that i never wanted to
166. 6:56think about it's something that i'm
167. 6:57certainly
168. 6:59uh
169. 7:00extremely interested in my
170. 7:04um
171. 7:06i don't know my personal artistic life
172. 7:08about you know what votive objects are
173. 7:11like small votives or you know like
174. 7:14press clay greek and roman and egyptian
175. 7:17and you know all over the world people
176. 7:19pressing clay making small votives
177. 7:22um and small figurines you know that the
178. 7:25as a space is completely fascinating to
179. 7:28me as already
180. 7:30uh
181. 7:31figuration and
182. 7:33figurative representation was something
183. 7:35that was
184. 7:36he has always been very compelling to me
185. 7:39and fascinating but not something you
186. 7:41know particularly that
187. 7:43i thought oh i have to do that
188. 7:45but then um
189. 7:47then i just couldn't you know i didn't
190. 7:49have my old assistance and so
191. 7:52uh
192. 7:53i just started making figures and you
193. 7:55know and then my assistant would you
194. 7:57know did make fun of me if my other new
195. 7:59assistants would make fun of me for them
196. 8:01but um
197. 8:02you know because they
198. 8:04were so sort of
199. 8:06we had like dolls or something or
200. 8:07puppets but
201. 8:09um
202. 8:11but i don't know you know it just it
203. 8:13gave me a kind of freedom doing it that
204. 8:15i could just do it myself you know and
205. 8:18then some of them i blew up larger it
206. 8:20was right at the beginning of the time
207. 8:22when
208. 8:22they were developing the um
209. 8:27you know sort of digital technology it
210. 8:30was very very rudimentary you know where
211. 8:32you could make small objects and instead
212. 8:34of having them pointed up in a
213. 8:37traditional classical manner they could
214. 8:40um
215. 8:41cut things with the router or they could
216. 8:44and then later build them up but but um
217. 8:48let's go let's just sort of an
218. 8:49interesting moment in it
219. 8:52about interesting moment i want to i
220. 8:54would like to come back to the 1960s
221. 8:57uh you said the history of the world
222. 9:00reside resides sorry in our bodies
223. 9:03political bodies social bodies
224. 9:06and at that time you became a key
225. 9:08figures in the 1960s era in seoul new
226. 9:12york
227. 9:13and you say
228. 9:15you were we were like a gang
229. 9:18no
230. 9:19no no no she was 20 years old 20 years
231. 9:22old
232. 9:23no no in the 1970s
233. 9:26yeah in the 1970s is better no i mean
234. 9:291970s sorry sorry
235. 9:32in the 1970s
236. 9:33so i wanted
237. 9:36no i i just wanted to know
238. 9:38um
239. 9:40what did it mean to to embrace uh a
240. 9:43carrier of an artist in this context of
241. 9:46of the new york of the
242. 9:481970s
243. 9:5070s yeah late 70s
244. 9:5354. so in 60 yeah i was six years old um
245. 9:59so in the late you know i came to new
246. 10:01york in
247. 10:0274
248. 10:05um i went to college for a little bit
249. 10:08and then i left and i moved to new york
250. 10:10and said okay now i'm an artist and
251. 10:13i made sculptures of boats for and uh
252. 10:19and then
253. 10:20and then i eventually started drawing
254. 10:23uh making paintings of my boyfriend's
255. 10:25guitar and
256. 10:27of pills and cigarettes
257. 10:29you know um
258. 10:31and then
259. 10:32uh
260. 10:33he gave me a
261. 10:35book of grey's anatomy and that sort of
262. 10:37got me into making this this body work
263. 10:40but i was completely unimportant in you
264. 10:44know
265. 10:45uh at all in the 70s and most of the 80s
266. 10:49you know in terms i mean i'm still not
267. 10:50important but then i had
268. 10:52no
269. 10:54you know nothing i was just young and
270. 10:56working and
271. 10:58in a way um many of the artists that i
272. 11:01was in the group up they started really
273. 11:03showing um
274. 11:05in the early 80s but i didn't really um
275. 11:10for the most part start showing till the
276. 11:12late 80s because i think what i did it
277. 11:14didn't really fit into
278. 11:17what people were doing and
279. 11:20late 80s was about the the
280. 11:23deconstruction of the discourse on
281. 11:25sexuality
282. 11:27the question of gender
283. 11:29yeah and uh but that to me those things
284. 11:32come in in the 90s and actually that's
285. 11:35when when the discourse changed and i
286. 11:38mean i wasn't trying to be in a
287. 11:39discourse i was just trying to uh
288. 11:43save my life save
289. 11:46uh like live through the
290. 11:49awkwardness of being in a body or being
291. 11:53a female like i wasn't like uh
292. 11:56a very successful female in many aspects
293. 12:00of like what the society wanted or
294. 12:02something like that so
295. 12:04you know i just heard a blundering
296. 12:06through and i was very uncomfortable
297. 12:09in the 90s is when like you know in
298. 12:12america at least that's when a lot of
299. 12:14the
300. 12:15um
301. 12:17people talking about sexuality and
302. 12:20identity and stuff that that sort of
303. 12:22then i left it because i felt like i was
304. 12:25really interested in a way of
305. 12:28i mean really interested in anatomy and
306. 12:31how
307. 12:32uh
308. 12:34you could just open any picture in
309. 12:36grey's anatomy and it resonated with
310. 12:39your life you know if you looked at what
311. 12:41different kinds of cells there were and
312. 12:44the nerve endings and the blood
313. 12:46capillaries and
314. 12:48um all these different things to me they
315. 12:50were so they all like in that sort of
316. 12:53catholic way i guess that they resonated
317. 12:55like relics like reliquary like that
318. 12:58this was um you know they had so much
319. 13:01uh
320. 13:02um
321. 13:04really resonance each thing that you
322. 13:06could look what the stomach is what the
323. 13:08lymphatic system is you know how it
324. 13:11looks and then what it
325. 13:12you know all the things that it would
326. 13:14bring up and that was really interesting
327. 13:16to me um
328. 13:17but
329. 13:19i think in
330. 13:21you know in the early 90s i was like
331. 13:23sort of a spinster living at home with
332. 13:26my cat so i didn't really like have a
333. 13:28great deal to contribute to
334. 13:31people's you know like generative you
335. 13:33know like sexual identities and things
336. 13:36like that i thought like you know a lot
337. 13:37of my life my husband gets really mad
338. 13:39when i say that but like
339. 13:41i'm not um
340. 13:44i just i'm trying to just live for long
341. 13:46enough that i can just be like a
342. 13:48neutered person
343. 13:49you know without being too discriminated
344. 13:52um
345. 13:54from
346. 13:56us being from being a female but you
347. 13:58know it's more like i just want to be a
348. 14:00person i want to like go back
349. 14:03about my sort of personhood
350. 14:06you know i do aspire to be a housewife a
351. 14:09good housewife sometime in my life but
352. 14:11i'm a relative failure at my
353. 14:14housekeeping um you know i always think
354. 14:17next year i'm going to be a better
355. 14:18housekeeper but you know not as an
356. 14:21exclusion of other people keeping house
357. 14:23too but just for my own
358. 14:26well-being but
359. 14:28but
360. 14:29you know so a lot of those things it's
361. 14:31sort of right when i left and it was i
362. 14:34left it in a way because
363. 14:36um
364. 14:39because i saw
365. 14:42um you're know
366. 14:43like it became more evident to me like
367. 14:46the loss of habitat of animals and when
368. 14:49i was younger i had made
369. 14:51images of plants and animals before i
370. 14:54started
371. 14:55um
372. 14:56i guess after my guitars and before
373. 14:58figures
374. 15:00but um so i sort of went back to that
375. 15:02and i thought that was a more important
376. 15:04thing to be thinking about was animal
377. 15:06habitat and then
378. 15:08and and animals and the extinction you
379. 15:10know sort of uh encroachment
380. 15:14of their demise and
381. 15:17you know and the scientists projections
382. 15:20of
383. 15:21when we would start losing uh large
384. 15:23mammals and
385. 15:27and then
386. 15:28sort of from that then i went into the
387. 15:30fairy tales because i thought that was a
388. 15:32place where our like
389. 15:34hearts were open
390. 15:37to
391. 15:38and are and there our get our our
392. 15:41identity in relationship with animals is
393. 15:44so
394. 15:46uh deeply ingrained in us
395. 15:48and i thought that's where that
396. 15:50intersection happens in mythology and in
397. 15:54yeah fairy tale and mythology and in
398. 15:57different cultures and um
399. 15:59you know and then i sort of slip back
400. 16:01into figuration again so it's something
401. 16:03that
402. 16:05comes and goes but
403. 16:08and
404. 16:10this fusion between the merging between
405. 16:12animal
406. 16:13and human it's uh something you're
407. 16:16you're aware from your practices
408. 16:18dedicate to
409. 16:21like 20 years i think you you open this
410. 16:24news chapter into 2000.
411. 16:26it's kind of premier
412. 16:29premonitor premier
413. 16:31uh
414. 16:32as we are living this climate crisis
415. 16:35it's yeah is it the kind of message
416. 16:39sorry
417. 16:40it was evident that i mean i remember my
418. 16:43father
419. 16:45taught at hunter college and the first
420. 16:47day when they made um earth day it was i
421. 16:50think 1970 or something and he went with
422. 16:53his students and
423. 16:55made a sculpture for earth day and um
424. 16:58you know so it was
425. 17:00you know
426. 17:01the forecast was on the wall for a very
427. 17:04long time and now we're living it you
428. 17:06know in a much more accelerated rate but
429. 17:09and it's not like
430. 17:11you know for me i just thought i'm
431. 17:13supposed to pay attention to that it's
432. 17:15not really that
433. 17:16i'm um
434. 17:19you know i have anything to contribute
435. 17:22to it's um
436. 17:25let's do a visual interpretation
437. 17:28a virtual tour of the of the exhibition
438. 17:30here in uh in the foundation
439. 17:33and and i'd like to focus to
440. 17:36to the um
441. 17:37to have you your comment on uh specific
442. 17:40works like for example the
443. 17:43uh you know the bus lane of course where
444. 17:45it's it's it's it's question of a
445. 17:48woman uh you know merging with a wolf or
446. 17:52lion or
447. 17:53the the porcelains come the porcelains
448. 17:56came
449. 17:57because um
450. 18:00i was
451. 18:01offered to have an exhibition at the
452. 18:04museum of modern art of my prints and
453. 18:07multiples when it was in queens when the
454. 18:10building was
455. 18:11being rebuilt
456. 18:12and um they said i could make a
457. 18:15billboard
458. 18:17and i thought immediately of army
459. 18:19russell's
460. 18:21um
461. 18:22like leper
462. 18:25attacking the leopard attacking the deer
463. 18:28or the white uh something or other or
464. 18:31you know these different um paintings of
465. 18:33his of of animals attacking one another
466. 18:37or animals attacking one another and
467. 18:39then you know i had some ideas about
468. 18:42that most
469. 18:43uh
470. 18:44animals or a great deal of anima not
471. 18:47most but a great deal of animals meet
472. 18:49their demise by being eaten by other
473. 18:51animals and um
474. 18:54i remember that in george but i
475. 18:58said animals are in the world like water
476. 19:01and water and that's something that i
477. 19:03resonated a lot for me and also uh for a
478. 19:07friend leslie scalifino we made a book
479. 19:09together of those images
480. 19:11and um so they're originally drawings
481. 19:15and um
482. 19:17and so i had this idea and it was also
483. 19:19it had something to do with that and had
484. 19:21so it had something to do with like how
485. 19:23you get out of your body you know
486. 19:24because i have like an endless
487. 19:26sort of semi-body discomfort um like how
488. 19:30do you get out of your body that you can
489. 19:32just like fly away and be a spirit but
490. 19:36um but also
491. 19:39yeah they're saying about being eaten
492. 19:41and but then also
493. 19:43um
494. 19:46i don't know something about
495. 19:48transformation and that's that the
496. 19:49animal world isn't separate like things
497. 19:52are in
498. 19:53constant transformation but it's not
499. 19:55really like a
500. 19:56sense of separateness like how we always
501. 19:58see each see ourselves
502. 20:01being separate and then
503. 20:03you know also about like how death um
504. 20:07like we are always we're upright beings
505. 20:10so we're always between
506. 20:12not like heaven and hell but we're
507. 20:14always between the earth and the skies
508. 20:17and
509. 20:18how it's only really when you're dead
510. 20:20that you get to really become part of
511. 20:22the earth like you're you're part of it
512. 20:25in a way that you're no longer separate
513. 20:27from it you know and and maybe we aren't
514. 20:29either but we don't really perceive
515. 20:31ourselves that way but when you
516. 20:33you know get to be
517. 20:34the food of worms and stuff and you're
518. 20:37sort of you know just uh
519. 20:40in it in it all um so
520. 20:43so somehow it was really interesting i
521. 20:46kept thinking about that a lot for a
522. 20:48while and then i made
523. 20:50um
524. 20:51i made those drawings and i had this
525. 20:54idea that i make this billboard but the
526. 20:55billboard never happened but then
527. 20:58i had the opportunity to work with the
528. 21:00wonderful romanian
529. 21:03ceramicist
530. 21:05and so i would make my sculptures in um
531. 21:09plasticine in oil-based clay
532. 21:11and then i'd bring them to him and he
533. 21:13would make the molds and and then cast
534. 21:16them and i made
535. 21:18first a series of
536. 21:20the
537. 21:21women sort of being eaten by animals
538. 21:24which to me was like kind of how to get
539. 21:26out of yourself like a strategy for
540. 21:28getting you out of yourself
541. 21:30but
542. 21:32um
543. 21:33and i think also someone had thrown
544. 21:35themselves into like a lion's den at the
545. 21:38zoo at that time there was something
546. 21:40that made my head go in that direction
547. 21:42you know it wasn't just out of the blue
548. 21:44but
549. 21:45but um
550. 21:47that but then uh and then i also made i
551. 21:50was asked like a little bit later than
552. 21:53this time
553. 21:54um
554. 21:55if i wanted to make a show at the
555. 21:58cuarini stampalia in in venice and they
556. 22:01had all these piedra longi paintings and
557. 22:04then i made like a
558. 22:05large dessert and that's also these
559. 22:08pieces were really meant as a
560. 22:10dessert um
561. 22:12i had an exhibition at the angabanda
562. 22:15kunz museum in vienna in maybe 93
563. 22:19and
564. 22:21peter nova the director there had
565. 22:23invited artists to make installations
566. 22:26and and donald judd had made an
567. 22:28incredibly beautiful room
568. 22:30which was about i don't know like 40
569. 22:32foot square room like
570. 22:34high also and then he had this porcelain
571. 22:37cabinet in the room and then he had this
572. 22:40long italian dessert you know of like a
573. 22:43kind of uh decorative folly in ceramics
574. 22:47from the 1700s and
575. 22:49um
576. 22:52got so deeply impressed me that i that i
577. 22:55started making these porcelains because
578. 22:57of that
579. 22:58uh it's fascinating the way you embrace
580. 23:01a lot of techniques we have tapestry we
581. 23:03have engraving we have drawings culture
582. 23:07how do you know
583. 23:09which medium is a good one to explore
584. 23:12the next subject how do you follow it's
585. 23:15it's a kind of
586. 23:17intuitive choice or
587. 23:20you know
588. 23:21some of it's intuitive some of it is
589. 23:23just um
590. 23:25being very fortunate to have people ask
591. 23:28me
592. 23:29to work in different like the tapestries
593. 23:32uh
594. 23:33don fonsworth
595. 23:35from magnolia editions he came and asked
596. 23:38me if i wanted to make tapestries and
597. 23:41for me
598. 23:42there was something that i never
599. 23:43imagined i would have that opportunity
600. 23:46in my life to do
601. 23:48and so um you know so i said yes i would
602. 23:51like to but then i said but i have to
603. 23:53make three and then i said i have to
604. 23:55make five and then so far i've made 13
605. 23:58of them and
606. 24:00that all had this format like a double
607. 24:03border on the bottom and one on the top
608. 24:05and then i've made subsequent to that
609. 24:08several others that kind of have a
610. 24:10different form but
611. 24:12you know because tapestries is such you
612. 24:14know obviously in your country
613. 24:16um you know where these are made that um
614. 24:20and gone you know it's such an
615. 24:22incredible rich history and such a
616. 24:25bizarre history you know in in
617. 24:28in european you know in re in
618. 24:31medieval and then renaissance kind of
619. 24:33like just the bizarreness of the sort of
620. 24:35glut of tapestries being made that all
621. 24:38end up you know as horse blankets and
622. 24:40things but um you know it's just a very
623. 24:43beautiful form because it it blankets
624. 24:47the world you know it protects you it
625. 24:49protects your environment
626. 24:52and then it gives you this
627. 24:54opportunity for narrative you know and
628. 24:57for me i guess i like relatively open
629. 25:00narratives this is this is me and my
630. 25:02husband
631. 25:03that's
632. 25:04a very literal narrative for me this one
633. 25:06but
634. 25:07um
635. 25:08and to explore colors as well no
636. 25:11what to explore colors yes yeah for me
637. 25:15it was really like a great opportunity
638. 25:17to be able to uh
639. 25:20to work with color you know because most
640. 25:23of my work had been
641. 25:25very much just made by the
642. 25:28materials you know like sort of being
643. 25:31then i'm from the 70s you know that
644. 25:34um the medium is the message you know
645. 25:37that
646. 25:37um
647. 25:39yeah that
648. 25:41yeah i just used materials and they had
649. 25:43a certain color and that's what they
650. 25:45were but but and i was always a little
651. 25:48bit afraid of color
652. 25:50um
653. 25:51so so but when it came to tapestries i
654. 25:54thought i have to i love color too like
655. 25:57in my house or something i'm surrounded
656. 25:59by color and decoration and things but
657. 26:02um
658. 26:03so it was really a great
659. 26:05opportunity for me to do that so some
660. 26:07things have come because people or like
661. 26:10because i met this man who was this
662. 26:12wonderful ceramicist to make the
663. 26:14porcelain pieces but then he had a
664. 26:16stroke
665. 26:17and then i just stopped and that you
666. 26:19know same with my assistants
667. 26:21leaving it just everything changes like
668. 26:24now like two or three years ago my
669. 26:26assistants changed
670. 26:28you know because now they're like 45 or
671. 26:30something like that they went like they
672. 26:31had enough of me but um
673. 26:35you know then it takes me two or three
674. 26:36years to figure out
675. 26:39what to do again this was made right
676. 26:42when the computer things were happening
677. 26:44were beginning to happen like computer
678. 26:46generated information and being able to
679. 26:48print on silk digitally print on silk
680. 26:51because that was a tremendous
681. 26:54innovation
682. 26:56because before that it was
683. 26:58you know very arduous and expensive to
684. 27:01make prints on silk you know you had the
685. 27:03silk screen and if you want to make more
686. 27:05than one color you had to silk screen
687. 27:06and you had to you know people would
688. 27:08demand that you had to do tons of
689. 27:10yardage and all these things it wasn't
690. 27:13practical that people could have access
691. 27:15to it so
692. 27:16that one woman sitting on the snake that
693. 27:19was made to right before i got to make
694. 27:22um
695. 27:23you know to make a woven tap a jacquard
696. 27:26tapestry
697. 27:28um so some things come like that and
698. 27:30other things come from just
699. 27:34you know it's really interesting to have
700. 27:36very many different experiences and most
701. 27:38of my work i would say is
702. 27:41print based
703. 27:42essentially and then from friends
704. 27:45i make sculptures for the most part or
705. 27:48make the tapestries the tapestries all
706. 27:50come from printed
707. 27:52uh
708. 27:53components that then i've collaged
709. 27:55together from from other from older
710. 27:57prints or from
711. 27:59that older drawings i was made it all
712. 28:01gets kind of mixed up together
713. 28:04so i think time is running so i have a
714. 28:08two more question before giving the
715. 28:11the
716. 28:12microphone to the audience
717. 28:15uh one is about uh cosmos we didn't talk
718. 28:18about cosmos cosmogony stars and uh
719. 28:22you know all the
720. 28:24and uh
721. 28:25the other one is
722. 28:26where i think you work from home so why
723. 28:31and
724. 28:32i guess you're close to nature that's uh
725. 28:37the way of being
726. 28:39always inspired
727. 28:41in aspirin yeah
728. 28:44yeah i mean i work at home just because
729. 28:48um my father worked at home he worked
730. 28:51and he sat in the sitting room and
731. 28:54you know made drawings of what he wanted
732. 28:56to make and then we made the models for
733. 28:58him and
734. 28:59you know
735. 29:00he would take over the dining room table
736. 29:02and then we didn't have a dining room
737. 29:04table anymore that was the end of the
738. 29:05dining room table um
739. 29:08but
740. 29:09but so i did that was my model of an
741. 29:11artist was somebody that worked at home
742. 29:13and my sister seton
743. 29:15um she's a year and a half younger than
744. 29:17me but she always wanted to be an artist
745. 29:20and she
746. 29:22also didn't have a studio because she
747. 29:23worked with photography and both so both
748. 29:26she and my father's work were thought of
749. 29:29or conceived
750. 29:30you know well satan's was more out in
751. 29:33the world but my brothers were at home
752. 29:34and then they were made someplace else
753. 29:37and
754. 29:38and so uh you know i think that was my
755. 29:41model but um at the same time i was
756. 29:44making things that were very messy and
757. 29:46shouldn't be in your house you know and
758. 29:48eventually i really limited what
759. 29:50materials i worked with at home and i
760. 29:53work i do a great deal of work in
761. 29:54foundries also
762. 29:56but at home you know
763. 29:58i i think as also i didn't go to art
764. 30:01school that long you know in a certain
765. 30:03way at art school you're
766. 30:05the higher up you go into it you get a
767. 30:07studio and then you're an artist because
768. 30:09you have a studio and
769. 30:12i just always thought that was all like
770. 30:13a sucker punch because you just had to
771. 30:15pay more you had to you needed more
772. 30:17money to pay the rent you know and
773. 30:20my rent was very
774. 30:22you know i moved into lots of abandoned
775. 30:24buildings in new york and sort of fixed
776. 30:26them up that i could live in them and
777. 30:28um
778. 30:30you know so i had very low overhead so i
779. 30:33could just sit at home and buy paper i
780. 30:35mean you know i went to work and then i
781. 30:37came home and you know i bought paper
782. 30:39with that work money and you know i
783. 30:41could draw at the kitchen table like i
784. 30:42didn't need any more than that and then
785. 30:45when i did i can go out to you know i
786. 30:48like the idea of the people owning
787. 30:52you know the means of production but i
788. 30:54like it if it's in somebody else's house
789. 30:56or somebody like a collective something
790. 30:59or other someplace outside of me
791. 31:03but um
792. 31:05you know so i've always worked at home
793. 31:07and then my husband fixed up this
794. 31:08building for me now which is like a big
795. 31:10building to have a studio because it
796. 31:12never had a studio and i'm sort of
797. 31:14getting on
798. 31:15in age and but then we moved into it
799. 31:18immediately so now i'm just back working
800. 31:20at home and so i'm much happier working
801. 31:22at home
802. 31:23um but i think you know and and i live
803. 31:26out of the city now so
804. 31:29you know a great deal in my work is does
805. 31:32come very directly from what i see out
806. 31:34the window
807. 31:36you know and or what i saw on my road
808. 31:39um
809. 31:41and and certainly
810. 31:43the cosmos and the uh
811. 31:46you know the stars and the moon are
812. 31:49things that have
813. 31:51always very much fascinated me
814. 31:54you know from when i was very young and
815. 31:56have you know they resin you know with
816. 31:58every person they have tremendous
817. 32:00uh internal
818. 32:03resident resonance
819. 32:05you know like how one positions oneself
820. 32:08or thinks of oneself in
821. 32:10you know in the vast universe and now
822. 32:12that the universe
823. 32:14you know our comprehension of the
824. 32:16universe just gets larger and larger and
825. 32:18larger
826. 32:19um
827. 32:20you know it keeps changing our our
828. 32:25you know sense of place in it
829. 32:27and and what it can mean but um
830. 32:30you know
831. 32:32i just always say the moon is my my
832. 32:34favorite thing on earth is the moon
833. 32:37but uh just as a joke to myself but um
834. 32:42there are images that i use over and
835. 32:44over you know that endlessly i'm
836. 32:46fascinated by
837. 32:49thank you gigi smith we are very very uh
838. 32:52happy and honored to have you uh tonight
839. 32:55with us and also to host this uh
840. 32:58fantastic exhibition at the foundation
841. 33:00for six months uh until may so i hope
842. 33:04really hope that you will come
843. 33:06in europe and uh yes
844. 33:09thank you thank you so much and thank
845. 33:11you for making the exhibition and we
846. 33:13have questions questions
847. 33:16thank you
848. 33:18thank you
849. 33:19i have
850. 33:20a kind of a silly question did you make
851. 33:22your tattoos yourself yeah
852. 33:25the tattoos
853. 33:27did you make did you make that yes
854. 33:30yes it was 15 years old and the uh and
855. 33:34the green ones between squares no that a
856. 33:36machine did it a machine okay yes sir
857. 33:38and what do they represent they used to
858. 33:40be stars oh it's stars stars um because
859. 33:44i love nuit the image of nuit you know
860. 33:47with the stars
861. 33:49like her covering the night okay
862. 33:52you know but but they blobbed out after
863. 33:55a while now they're just dots
864. 33:58so it's some kind of of a cosmos but an
865. 34:00inner customers that got faded into yeah
866. 34:03so the stars got into
867. 34:04yourself all of them are really yeah
868. 34:07they are all constellations yes
869. 34:09they have different constellations on me
870. 34:12and but i don't think about them i i put
871. 34:14them all on places of my body that i
872. 34:16don't see them you know
873. 34:18so
874. 34:19and like never put them on never put
875. 34:21them on arms that are going to be
876. 34:24hanging down and always put them on flat
877. 34:27surfaces
878. 34:28you know and on the back preferably
879. 34:30because then you never have to see them
880. 34:32because if you get tattoos you never
881. 34:33think about them again for a second you
882. 34:35know they can be very meaningful to you
883. 34:38in your head but the second they're done
884. 34:40you never see them again but why are
885. 34:43they green if their stars because for me
886. 34:44there were more animals so it was more
887. 34:46related to the first part of the
888. 34:47conversation but actually it's for the
889. 34:49second part of the conv conversation
890. 34:51it's strange
891. 34:53i have i had some animals removed
892. 35:04yes i thought it was more like an animal
893. 35:06kind of a uh
894. 35:08like a snake or something like that but
895. 35:10so it was uh
896. 35:13i don't know maybe next time
897. 35:15yes sir
898. 35:18the problem with silly questions is that
899. 35:20once there is a silly question there is
900. 35:21no there is no intelligent question
901. 35:23after the silly question ah
902. 35:25i'm sorry here
903. 35:28yeah it's an intelligent question hello
904. 35:30hello kiki um i'm a publisher of a
905. 35:33magazine and and uh running a a gallery
906. 35:36what's your next project um
907. 35:39what's what's your ultimate project in
908. 35:41life
909. 35:46my main project is just to stay you know
910. 35:49hopefully stay alive through all of this
911. 35:52but
912. 35:53um
913. 35:55i don't know
914. 35:56i don't know you know actually for me
915. 35:58it's been incredibly great time because
916. 36:02um i had a great deal of exhibitions in
917. 36:04europe
918. 36:06um in belgium and in france and in
919. 36:10england and in italy and
920. 36:12um
921. 36:15all at the same time and about right
922. 36:18before the beginning of the pandemic and
923. 36:19i thought i really was going to
924. 36:22end up in you know in the morgue or
925. 36:25catatonic or something if i didn't stop
926. 36:27traveling um
927. 36:29all the time but so this time has been
928. 36:31really great for me and to make
929. 36:33exhibitions where i'm not traveling and
930. 36:35i'm just staying home and
931. 36:38yeah kind of meandering and working at a
932. 36:40much slower pace that's much more
933. 36:43manageable
934. 36:44um to my psyche is um
935. 36:49is really great but i don't know
936. 36:52and even within that time i've done a
937. 36:54lot of projects and i don't know it's
938. 36:56not like that i'm making some
939. 36:58united front of work at the moment but
940. 37:03you know i'm always working in all
941. 37:04different directions at once
942. 37:07um and
943. 37:08i can see that there are inklings of
944. 37:10things that will come together i think i
945. 37:13have been having a
946. 37:15show at the museum in seoul in
947. 37:19next year maybe in 2023 maybe
948. 37:23so i have to get on that a little bit
949. 37:26but but um and i probably have some
950. 37:28other things too but i just don't think
951. 37:30about them
952. 37:35thank you thank you i have uh
953. 37:38just a
954. 37:39last uh last question you know at the
955. 37:41foundation we organize a digital program
956. 37:44uh
957. 37:45which in in which we invite artists and
958. 37:48scientists to um
959. 37:52for a dialogue and to create new
960. 37:54narratives uh regarding the climate
961. 37:57crisis
962. 37:58as an artist what what
963. 38:01what do you think of the role of your
964. 38:03role to uh
965. 38:05to
966. 38:06develop new narrative to
967. 38:09you know to transform
968. 38:11the way you we are connecting to nature
969. 38:15uh what is the responsibility of the
970. 38:18artist uh redunging the the climate
971. 38:20crisis
972. 38:23i don't think artists have any
973. 38:25particular responses you know or maybe
974. 38:28like
975. 38:29people have as citizens or people have
976. 38:33um the necessity to think about things
977. 38:36and to move do whatever they can think
978. 38:40to do but i don't like i think artists
979. 38:42don't have
980. 38:43um like
981. 38:45art is just its own thing you know it's
982. 38:48it it wants to go in all different very
983. 38:51nuanced manners that don't fit into
984. 38:54uh didactic agendas or something like
985. 38:57that i mean to me
986. 38:58i know since that time when the woman
987. 39:01that harvard told me what the statistics
988. 39:04were the loss of animals would be
989. 39:07um
990. 39:09you know that's mostly what i see or
991. 39:11think about but it's not like that my
992. 39:13work
993. 39:14uh
994. 39:16direct it's more like my work says
995. 39:19i had once a dream and it said once i
996. 39:21saw a bird and i thought in my lifetime
997. 39:24there might be a time where i won't see
998. 39:26birds anymore like it came
999. 39:28um very strongly to me that that was a
1000. 39:31possibility
1001. 39:32and uh
1002. 39:34before i went to harvard but um
1003. 39:38you know so for me it's like to pay
1004. 39:41attention pay attention like look and
1005. 39:43notice and pay attention to the
1006. 39:46uh incredible
1007. 39:48gift one has to be alive and to be alive
1008. 39:51within nature
1009. 39:53and to be part of nature and um
1010. 39:58you know so for me it's it's like
1011. 40:03a focal point
1012. 40:05you know maybe as a meditation or as a
1013. 40:08focal point and you know like also i can
1014. 40:11garden and you know look at all the
1015. 40:14pollinators and my husband's a beekeeper
1016. 40:17and so
1017. 40:18you know so i have to think about it
1018. 40:21um
1019. 40:22you know and i mean now like all the
1020. 40:24deer just died because
1021. 40:26the storms the tropical storms came
1022. 40:30and they brought up
1023. 40:32new you know biological information from
1024. 40:36the south and now all the deers here are
1025. 40:37starving they're internally starving to
1026. 40:40death not from externally but their
1027. 40:43bodies collapsing you know so now you
1028. 40:45don't see any deer here or last year
1029. 40:48we lost we had 60 hives and we've got
1030. 40:51went down to five hives because of some
1031. 40:54strange something or other
1032. 40:56um you know coming from other places and
1033. 40:59stuff so
1034. 41:00um
1035. 41:02you know it's just
1036. 41:03like we
1037. 41:04were have a glorious gift
1038. 41:08to be alive and to
1039. 41:10be in the presence of nature and so for
1040. 41:13me
1041. 41:14i like to pay attention to it in my own
1042. 41:16like completely convoluted way
1043. 41:19did you see the movie don't look up with
1044. 41:21leonardo dicaprio
1045. 41:25i recommend
1046. 41:26that you should see the film the movie
1047. 41:28it's uh
1048. 41:30it's it's uh it's a it's about uh a
1049. 41:33comet who is a
1050. 41:35a threat for earth and it's with mary's
1051. 41:38trip as a president of the united states
1052. 41:40it's a set sea of the climate crisis
1053. 41:42it's it's fun and uh it's and also very
1054. 41:45scary
1055. 41:46anyway thank you very much thank you for
1056. 41:48giving us
1057. 41:49your time i i'm sort of fun and scary
1058. 41:53fun and scary thank you sorry for acting
1059. 41:55so goofy but
1060. 41:57you know it's i'm trying to make my
1061. 41:59house not uh
1062. 42:02and then explode at the moment so
1063. 42:04right no i my humidity in my house is
1064. 42:07super super low
1065. 42:09it's only 16
1066. 42:11so
1067. 42:12i'm like
1068. 42:13going crazy um
1069. 42:15so that's what i know
1070. 42:17anyway it's very nice to see you all
1071. 42:21thank you thank you and i hope to see
1072. 42:23you in spring when bird's coming back
1073. 42:27thank you bye bye kiki smith bye
1074. 42:30[Applause]
1075. 42:46you