Kiki Smith

Homespum Tales. Stories of home occupation

9 June - 11 September 2005

by Chiara Bertola

Collateral event of 51st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale

The project of the American artist of German origins Kiki Smith is based on a personal reflection on the Venetian house.

Inspired by the rich collections of portraits in the Fondazione Querini Museum, Kiki Smith has put together the fragments of a nostalgic domestic tale.

Taking some typical elements from the houses of Venetian aristocratc, – paintings, forniture, mirrors – and inspired by American traditional aestheticism, from colonial times till today, the artist has created a new language by highiting a new domestic bricolage.

In a game of continuous references, miming and imitating various elements of the collection, Kiki Smith unravels her private and apparently chaotic story of homesickness for a domestic life. It is a hand-woven habitat, in whic it is possible to hear the echo of long gone times and places. Here you can find the disorder and the decorative bleakness in the stories of precarious lives, squatters, old and homeless women.

The project was made thanks to the support of Pace Wildenstein Gallery in New York and the main sponsor Montblanc.

Catalogue: Kiki Smith. Homespun Tales. Stories of home occupation.

Edition Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice 2005

Texts by Chiara Bertola, Vincent Katz, Bianca Tarozzi

Images of the exhibition