KIKI SMITH 'Touch - Prints by Kiki Smith'

Kiki Smith has donated her oeuvre of published prints—single sheets, artist’s books and series — to the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München. TOUCH. Prints by Kiki Smith is the title of the solo show that celebrates this generous donation. The Staatliche Graphische Sammlung is known internationally as one of the most renowned museums for works on paper, now it has the largest holdings of prints by Kiki Smith in the world. More than 160 works selected from this exceptional donation offer a fascinating look into the artist’s entire oeuvre of prints from 1985 to nowadays. Prints have been grouped according to thematic aspects: The World between Life and Death, The World of the Human Body and Inside the White Cube. The artist has a special connection to Germany and particularly to the Free State of Bavaria as it is her place of birth. She was born in Nuremberg in 1954, in 1976 moved to New York, where she has lived and worked ever since. 

Human existence is the central theme of her oeuvre. She thematize the human body early in her career in the 1980s, initially in the form of fragments. Contemporary political issues, such as dealing with emancipation  and AIDS, are echoed in her works. Since 1992, she has also turned to the animal as a companion for the human being, exploring, at the same time the checkered existence of humankind in biblical stories and in fairy tales. She has also been investigating the human connection to nature and the cosmos (since the late 1990s).