Random
Kiki Smith
I feel cross-influenced. By that I mean that some visual artists and musicians have as much influence on my writing as writers do, often more. For this reason I want to show you some pictures of work by Kiki Smith, a visual artist who makes incredible objects.
I realize that a lot of HTMLgiant readers might feel like the art world is another planet. It often feels that way if you go to an art gallery opening to mooch free wine or the MoMa on a busy afternoon. Maybe you were stoned all the way through your Art History 101 class in high school or college or maybe you never took one or maybe your teacher was unforgivably snobbish. Maybe it seems like 90% of the “contemporary art” you’ve seen shouldn’t be called art at all. That might be true. I don’t know. I just know there are a lot of living artists that I love because I get that giddy-faced-piss-my-pants feeling when I see their work in real life. Kiki Smith is probably at the top of this list of Artists Who Are Like Writers.
I feel like writers and visual artists have a lot more in common than we often acknowledge. Writing and making objects are lonely endeavors. We’re both trying to get something that is so clear in our brains to be just as clear to other people.
An installation by the Central Park Zoo
We’re often reclusive. We have to find other ways to support ourselves and feel confused about MFA programs. Debut novelists and young, hip artists are often marketed in a similarly disgusting way. We both struggle with issues of labeling (poetry? prose? performance? installation?) …. So, I’m going to start a little series on the giant about this. Artists who are like writers or Artists that writers like or something. A kind of crash course in contemporary art.
(c) Art 21 Inc
Kiki Smith had a strange life.
When she was a girl she was obsessed with death.
She is still obsessed with it.
She is also obsessed with mythology and the human body.
I am using the word obsessed intentionally. Obsession seems like a big part of her work.
An in-progress shot, (c) Art 21 Inc
Tags: kiki smith, mfa programs
i like this. i was thinking about this after chriss higgs post about music. shane jones talks about visual art influencing him. i wish i looked at more. i feel ignorant in that i sometimes dont even know where to start looking for art to enjoy.
i like this. i was thinking about this after chriss higgs post about music. shane jones talks about visual art influencing him. i wish i looked at more. i feel ignorant in that i sometimes dont even know where to start looking for art to enjoy.
Good! This will be a start.
Good! This will be a start.
I was an art major as an undergrad, and despite how much I love love love books, I was (and remain) more often influenced (to write, or to combine text and image) by modern-through-contemporary art. plus art theory is fucking awesome, and if you just think of writing itself as art you don’t have to label anything and it’s awesome. plus, it seems like half of conceptual writing came about due to visual artists (fluxus, acconci, george brecht, etc), and conceptual writing seems important to the development of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E group, which seems important to what lots of people around here love, namely Language in literature itself.
I was an art major as an undergrad, and despite how much I love love love books, I was (and remain) more often influenced (to write, or to combine text and image) by modern-through-contemporary art. plus art theory is fucking awesome, and if you just think of writing itself as art you don’t have to label anything and it’s awesome. plus, it seems like half of conceptual writing came about due to visual artists (fluxus, acconci, george brecht, etc), and conceptual writing seems important to the development of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E group, which seems important to what lots of people around here love, namely Language in literature itself.
oh yeah, the subject at hand:
Kiki Smith’s work, in person, is so fucking ominous and creepy. Whatever statue is up at the Art Institute of Chicago (it’s been half a decade since I’ve visited) totally destroyed me in high school. It looked about to move, permanently, a violation of the time-image in stone (or whatever medium she was using at the time)
oh yeah, the subject at hand:
Kiki Smith’s work, in person, is so fucking ominous and creepy. Whatever statue is up at the Art Institute of Chicago (it’s been half a decade since I’ve visited) totally destroyed me in high school. It looked about to move, permanently, a violation of the time-image in stone (or whatever medium she was using at the time)
awesome
awesome
i really like that pigeon with the person head. wicked.
i really like that pigeon with the person head. wicked.
thank you, this was a good post. definitely couldn’t hurt to post one visual art once in awhile. i usually get my fix from bright stupid confetti.
thank you, this was a good post. definitely couldn’t hurt to post one visual art once in awhile. i usually get my fix from bright stupid confetti.
yeah, i usually find things from brightstupidconfetti. i want to know where else to look
yeah, i usually find things from brightstupidconfetti. i want to know where else to look
yeah, i’m all about “cross-influence.” visual art is definitely related to writing and the mental process behind writing. anyway, good post.
yeah, i’m all about “cross-influence.” visual art is definitely related to writing and the mental process behind writing. anyway, good post.
her sculpture with all the black poodles surrounding a white starred baby scared the fuck out of me / made me laugh for like five minutes the first time i saw it: http://tinyurl.com/l7lqvt
her sculpture with all the black poodles surrounding a white starred baby scared the fuck out of me / made me laugh for like five minutes the first time i saw it: http://tinyurl.com/l7lqvt
http://vvork.com (for mostly contemporary)
http://vvork.com (for mostly contemporary)
[…] to Catherine Lacey’s post, HTMLGIANT will be venturing into art now and then. I’d like to begin with the crotch, which […]
Nice. Great artist. Vis art is certainly important to me, and often [usually] more inspirational to my wrirting than other writing. Look forward to your posts. Oh and hey, there are shitloads of great contemp art.
Nice. Great artist. Vis art is certainly important to me, and often [usually] more inspirational to my wrirting than other writing. Look forward to your posts. Oh and hey, there are shitloads of great contemp art.
Yes! This work is amazing, thanks for posting it.
What’s been stimulating for me is to try and view writing through the lens of other mediums/specific artists. For example: the idea of a series or “period”– Picasso’s blue period, say– makes sense to me, especially when I sift through whatever short fiction I’ve been recently generating and invariably identify formal or thematic recurrences. This happens most often when I interrupt current pieces to start new pieces, to start new pieces, to start new pieces. They’re all the same attempt. Rising up in new and sneaky clothes.
Sometimes what visual arists write about their work translates well to writing. One medium opens the other. Jean Dubuffet on strangeness and surprise:
“I feel that a work of art should be wreathed in surprise, that it should present an appearance that we have never seen before, that it should disorient you powerfully and transport you to an altogether unexpected world. I believe that from the moment a work of art loses this quality of strangeness, that it loses all efficacy, and is no longer of any use.”
Wreathed in surprise. YES.
Yes! This work is amazing, thanks for posting it.
What’s been stimulating for me is to try and view writing through the lens of other mediums/specific artists. For example: the idea of a series or “period”– Picasso’s blue period, say– makes sense to me, especially when I sift through whatever short fiction I’ve been recently generating and invariably identify formal or thematic recurrences. This happens most often when I interrupt current pieces to start new pieces, to start new pieces, to start new pieces. They’re all the same attempt. Rising up in new and sneaky clothes.
Sometimes what visual arists write about their work translates well to writing. One medium opens the other. Jean Dubuffet on strangeness and surprise:
“I feel that a work of art should be wreathed in surprise, that it should present an appearance that we have never seen before, that it should disorient you powerfully and transport you to an altogether unexpected world. I believe that from the moment a work of art loses this quality of strangeness, that it loses all efficacy, and is no longer of any use.”
Wreathed in surprise. YES.
just realized i wasn’t talking about kiki smith’s piece at all. i was thinking of katharina fritsch, who is also a bad ass sculptor lady. kiki’s was in the same room, but it was this one: http://www.whatimseeing.com/upload3/sf_moma_10.jpg – nywy
just realized i wasn’t talking about kiki smith’s piece at all. i was thinking of katharina fritsch, who is also a bad ass sculptor lady. kiki’s was in the same room, but it was this one: http://www.whatimseeing.com/upload3/sf_moma_10.jpg – nywy