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Untitled a.k.a. The Sitter

Kiki Smith American, born Germany
1992
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
Smith’s figures resist the patriarchal eroticization of the nude female body. In Untitled, a distinctly nontitillating and unclassical body made of sticky, dense, and viscerally powerful materials evokes the thick and messy corporeal reality of a body that ages, sweats, and bleeds. Wax and cloth mimic the translucency, porousness, and fragility of skin, evident in the deep open wounds gouged into the figure’s back, which establishes her as an abject survivor of physical as well as existential violence.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Untitled a.k.a. The Sitter
  • Artist: Kiki Smith (American, born Nuremberg, 1954)
  • Date: 1992
  • Medium: Wax, cheesecloth, wood and dye
  • Dimensions: 28 × 24 × 36 in., 20 lb. (71.1 × 61 × 91.4 cm, 9.1 kg)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Emily Fisher Landau, AMART LLC
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Kiki Smith, courtesy Pace Gallery.
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art