Untitled (Red Man)

In Untitled (Red Man), Kiki Smith coats layers of translucent Gampi paper in blood-red ink, like strata of skin peeled away from a corpse and turned inside out. Molded into various human limbs and parts, the delicate paper sculpture suggests a body beaten, torn apart, and destroyed by something powerful. Here, danger is palpable, a reminder of the potential for violence and pain on all bodies. Hanging limply on the wall, the sculpture signals that even gravity has the capacity to inflict brutal force. Simultaneously, the hollow paper form is unmistakably lightweight, free from the physicality of corporeal human presence. In her figurative sculptures that elicit visceral responses, Smith skillfully conjures both an earthly mortality and an ethereal state of being in what the artist describes as “physical manifestations of psychic and spiritual dilemmas.”