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 Kiki Smith Curatorial Essay
In Kiki Smith’s large-scale portrait Untitled, the artist conceives an
image that is filled with pervasive symbolism, interpretable in numerous ways.
Starting with Smith’s choice of materials, we experience the fragility of the
handmade paper as a metaphor for the delicacy of the girl/woman. The torso and
head seem as if they are disparate entities: the body belonging to a developing
adolescent; the face projecting a woman with a dreamy, disconnected gaze. Does
the head match the body? Read more.
Obama Reaches Out to the Artworld
The gathering was billed as “The New York Art World Votes.” My e-vite outlined a
forum on why New York artists, curators, critics and dealers believed that Barack
Obama was the best choice for the Democratic nomination. Lucy Mitchell-Innes, who
told me she had been introduced to the Obama message through her 20-year-old
daughter, hosted the event at the Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery. A recently
naturalized citizen, she is “convinced of Obama’s ability to pull the country together.” Read more.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song at Von Lintel Gallery
In 1971, Melvin Van Peeble’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song exploded onto
the American scene. Huey P. Newton, writing about its impact in that year’s June
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19 issue of The Black Panther, qualified it as “the first truly revolutionary Black
film made…by a Black man.” Van Peebles, who wrote, directed, produced, scored,
and starred in the indie film began his cinematic presentation with the words,
“Dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man.”
Read more.
Activism and Art Connection
With Nancy Pelosi the new House speaker and Hillary Clinton throwing her hat into the presidential ring, feminist art also looks to the
future in 2007, while still debating its past. A group of female curators at the Museum of Modern Art, having come up through the
ranks to speak today with a formidable voice, turned on the spotlight at a two-day event hosted by MoMA, an institution that has been
slow in the past to acknowledge the work of women artists. Read more.
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