Film Screening: Kiki Smith: Squatting the Palace
Thursday, August 12, 2010, 7:00 - 8:45 PM
Henry Auditorium
Henry Members- FREE
General Admission- $5
This film takes a circular approach to an artist who works in overlapping spirals of creative energy. Smith works in her home- not in a space specifically designed as a studio but on the 2nd floor of her East Village townhouse. There, amid her books, a pet bird, and tiny kitchenette, Smith goes from drawing to collage to modeling clay to painting plaster casts and back, again and again, moving from one discipline to another in a way that can seem aimless to a casual observer, but which is actually the modus operandi of a highly sophisticated visual artist.
Over the course of the film, it becomes apparent that many of the pieces Smith is creating- including sculptures, photographs, prints and furniture fashioned from liquor boxes- are intended for an eight-room installation at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice, Italy, to open contemporaneously with the 2005 Venice Biennale. We see Smith collaborating with aritsans fabricating her sculptures and observe her daily interactions with her assistants. We then follow Smith to Venice and witness the complex installation of her exhibition, which proves to be an integral part of the conceptual whole. The video culminates in a detailed look at the completed exhibition, Homespun Tales: Stories of Domestic Occupation.
Before the film, join us at 6PM in the North Galleries for a guided tour of I Myself Have Seen It: Photography and Kiki Smith. Please RSVP for this tour to
I Myself Have Seen It: Photography & Kiki Smith