overview
Lesson 1 | Summary
Activity Pages
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lesson 1 | remaking myths
activity | retelling stories
Inspired by a diverse range of characters and stories from mythological,
biblical, historical, and personal sources, Kiki
Smith creates visual narratives in the form of figurative
sculpture, prints, and textiles. In her work, Smith incorporates
animals, domestic objects, and narrative tropes from classical mythology
and folk tales. In several of her pieces, including “Lying
with the Wolf,”
“Wearing the Skin,” “Rapture,”
and “Born,”
Smith takes as her inspiration the life of St. Genevieve, the patron
saint of Paris. Portrayed communing with a wolf, taking shelter
with its pelt, and being born from its womb, Smith’s character
of Genevieve embodies the complex, symbolic relationships between
humans and animals.
In describing her ideas about art, Smith says, "It’s
also about storytelling in that sense, about reiterating over and
over and over again these mythological stories about saints and
other deities that can come and intervene for you on your behalf.
All the saints have attributes that are attached to them and you
recognize them through their iconography. And it’s about transcendence
and transmigration, something moving always from one state to another."
Smith also created a series of sculptures based on the history of
the persecution of witches in from the 1300's through the early
1700's. Inspired by visual and literary documents, Smith created
a number of 'monuments' to the women accused of witchcraft and burned
on pyres throughout Europe.
Describing this series of sculptures, Smith says:
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"The women—I
put them together because they have a physical relationship
to one another. The women on pyres came from a photograph
I bought in an anonymous collection of photographs from someone’s
notebook in the late 1890’s, from Lyon. And it's like
early collage work....And then he also made these wonderful
ones of a woman kneeling on a pillow and then he collages
that with a pyre, these women on pyres.
"And
I was asked to be in a competition last year, or two years
ago, for an outdoor sculpture. And I spent a lot of time trying
to do it but I wasn’t good at doing it. And I decided
that I didn’t want to make public sculpture that was
of other people’s agendas. I couldn’t do that.
I can only do things that come from my necessity. And so then
I thought I wanted to make these women on pyres, like these
commemoratives for witches. I was making at the time drawings
of drowned witches, of them floating with their hair in the
water. And I thought these women on pyres, that I wanted to
make these sculptures and that they should be in all these
towns in Europe, like in each town." |
As a class, view the Kiki Smith segment in the Art:21 Season Two
Stories hour to learn more about her work. In addition, read selections
from Smith's interviews (see links above) related to her interest
in historical and mythological source material. To inform your discussion
about Smith's work, have students research the history of witches
including mythology that incorporates stories about witches, and
biblical stories that include Saint Genevieve (see Online Resources
listed above). Ask students to discuss Smith's sculptures “Rapture”
and “Born”
and prints, "Wearing the Skin" and "Lying with the
Wolf." Knowing that Smith was inspired by an image she saw
of Genevieve in a painting at the Louvre in Paris, ask students
to discuss how her sculptures relate to the myths and histories
of these same characters. In journal entries, have students record
their observations about the similarities and differences in the
various representations.
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