Girl with Blue Dress
Artist
Kiki Smith
(American, born 1954)
Date2003–2004
Mediumpainted ceramic
Dimensionswithout pedestal: 101.6 x 35.6 x 35.6 cm (40 x 14 x 14 in.)
ClassificationsSculpture
MarkingsEchigo-Tsumari Art, Japan, 2003
Credit LineStoddard Acquisition Fund
Object number2004.48
Label TextEarly in her career, Kiki Smith offered the observation, “To me it’s much more scary to be a girl in public than to talk about the digestive system. They both have as much meaning in your life, but I’ve been punished more for being a girl than I’ve been punished for having a digestive system.” Today, Smith is widely recognized for her role in bringing the human figure, in all its mortal urgency, back to the center of contemporary art making. While much of her work in the 1980s examined the body and its functions from the inside, during the 1990s she began paying attention to the figure’s exterior.
Frequently exploring human nature from the perspectives of female subjects (including herself)—from goddesses and nymphs to biblical figures or characters from fairy tales—around 1999 Smith began to focus on themes of childhood, addressing not only the tenderness and vulnerability but also the loss of innocence. In the painted passages of Girl with a Blue Dress, we see evidence of Smith’s delicate handwork. Subtle imperfections on the exterior are proof of this young adolescent’s existence in the physical world, while her thoughts, hopes, and fears remain safely hidden behind a mask of mystery and calm.
ProvenanceBarbara Krakow Gallery, BostonOn View
On view
100–500 CE
