KIKI SMITH AND PAPER: THE BODY THE MUSE, AND THE SPIRIT is a smart and powerful little show of drawings by the artist at Syracuse University. It is broken up into three parts. The first part is focused on body viscera. The second is terribly earthbound with Carrollinian pictures of young girls in nature with animals. The third part is devoted to things of the spirit, to old women, reflecting the artist’s own investment in Catholic spirituality and the memory of her mother. The sense of the whole is provided by the sustainable Asian papers, identified by a wall text as soft, handmade, delicate, clothlike, fragile, and translucent. I would have said that the material is more skin-like. The flow of the exhibition organization proceeds from the inside out. It’s the paper that is the main thing.
On the whole I agree with the statement that art should be an expression of the spirit. In the myth of Demeter and her daughter Persephone it is the wisdom of the old crone Hecate that brings the story to its conclusion. In the myth all aspects of a woman is found. This is what should be celebrated. Kiki Smith has encompassed all. Thank you Kiki.