Kiki Smith: The Venice Story

Kiki Smith: The Venice Story is based on Vivien Bittencourt and Vincent Katz’s video about Kiki Smith’s eight-room installation in 2005 at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice. Taking inspiration from the Querini Stampalia family collection, with paintings by Pietro Longhi, a model by Antonio Canova, Sèvres porcelain, and elaborate furniture and mirrors, Smith worked to fill a floor in the palazzo that had been turned into a contemporary art space, by combining reinvented Venetian images with ideas and pictures culled from her study of the experiences of women in America during colonial times. In this book, Smith discusses her Venice work — which included bronze, porcelain, glass, drawing, etching, photography, and video. On a deeper level, much of the work here relates to Smith’s childhood with two parents who were artists, and Smith discusses how that background impacted her life as an artist. The book includes 19 new works created by Smith especially for this publication.