Kiki Smith’s Sojourn is on exhibit at Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art until September 12, 2010.

Kiki Smith communicates in her own language.  She uses paper, pencil, glue, glass, and glitter.  And she patches the pieces together, she sprinkles on the glitter on and she shapes her rounded forms with paper mache.  These materials and techniques are often associated with craft – which is universally understood to be woman’s work.  In the pieces pictured above we see two birdcages side by side; one of them holds a blue bird that is calling out and the other a shining light bulb.  The bird and the light bulb are caged but the energy they emit pushes outside the bars of the cage.  The voice of the bird mimics the shining of the light bulb in that they are both depicted with strips of glittered paper.  At a closer look we see that the black bars of the cages are collaged on as well.  The glittered paper beams are pasted down loosely.  They jump over the bars and outside the cage.  The circular motion of the strips in combination with their shadows and their sparkling mica glitter animate the work.  This work can only be experienced in person.  One must go beyond the dry visual read of symbols that satisfy most artwork.  Kiki Smith pays close attention to her materials, how they are put together, the shadows they cast and the light and energy they emit.  And this makes for an immediate tactile experience that is hard to find in contemporary art today.

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