Style and Substance

I recently went to see 'Sojourn' - an installation by Kiki Smith at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art in Brooklyn Museum. As a woman with a largely literary, rather than visual, imagination, I can sometimes find it hard to engage with works of art. I'm often left feeling intimidated, under-stimulated, and ill-informed, and can find myself desperately groping for an appropriate intellectual or emotional response. With, 'Sojourn', however, it was a different story. I left the museum fizzing with energy.

In the show, Smith tends to reuse images and motifs in ways that recall the childish pleasure of repetition - the joy of seeing the same thing over and over again, which somehow manages to generate a sense of both comforting satiation and ecstatic thrill. Her ink drawings were compelling - I loved the softness of the lines, and the delicacy and fragility of the Nepal paper with which she works - and there is something elementally satisfying about the multimedia nature of the show. It's hard to describe the sudden pleasure that comes with seeing a 2D image suddenly rendered in an unearthly sculptural form.

All in all, I found this to be an oneiric and beautiful exhibition that provoked a real visceral reaction, and I would highly recommend it. 

Aside from the high-cultural pleasures of feminist art, though, I was really seduced by the persona of Smith herself. The museum was playing a short documentary film about the artist's preparations for a 2005 site-specific exhibition at Venice's Fondazione Querini Stampalia, and I was just mesmerized. She works with such an easy carelessness, putting pen to paper without tentativeness or anxiety, and cutting into clay sculptures with seemingly no fear of error. It was exhilarating to watch. Plus, she apparently loves dead stuff, especially images of dead animals, and that really resonates with some of my own weird preoccupations.

Smith is also an incredibly stylish woman. Just look!

Smith's hair is the most obvious target for my shallow, fawning adulation. It reminds me of Grace Coddington or Angela Carter; two other women that I hugely admire. What is it about a wild, natural mane that smacks of second wave feminism? I don't know, but the colour, the undone style, and the women's movement associations are all working for me! Her apparent preference for darker colours, strong glasses, and interesting jewellery also very much appeals, but I must reserve a special word of appreciation for the tattoos. As an inked woman myself, it's great to see older women with body art, and I really love the stark, graphic, almost ritualistic feeling of her tattoos. You can see more of them here, whilst perhaps gaining a less superficial insight into the artist:



I just love the shots of her hands; so quick and so skillful, decorated with chipped silver polish and tattoos. To me, she has this amazing witch-y quality that's just beautiful, and I really hope this is the look I'm channeling when I reach creative and intellectual maturity.