Comprising loans from the artist’s archives and several private collections, this exhibition explored a number of distinct ways photographs play a central role in the development of Smith’s aesthetic and in the creation of her art. Among the remarkable range of Smith’s photographic works, the exhibition featured hand-made composites, diaristic snapshots, video collaborations, and unique takes on computer-based techniques. Conceived as a series of distinctive installations, the exhibition incorporated dense arrangements of snapshots that suggest how Smith thinks visually, along with large-scale presentation photographs of her sculptures, and sequences of staged narratives — Smith’s unique versions of traditional fairy tales. It juxtaposed source photographs from the beginning of a project with the sculptures they inspired. The exhibition also featured examples of important early experiments with captured images, such as the slide show-performance Life Wants to Live (1982), and the artist’s animations of 19th-century motion photographs by Eadweard Muybridge.

The tour of I Myself Have Seen It: Photography & Kiki Smith includes The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (April 8–August 14, 2011), The Tang Museum at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (September 17–December 30, 2011), and  Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ (February 11–May 20, 2012).