Kiki Smith and the presence of bodies and myths in museums

From the AD HOC NEWS Art Desk » Award & Prize Desk - The editors cover exhibitions, auctions, collections, prizes and artistic positions. Published: June 18, 2026 · Last checked: June 18, 2026, 7:01 PM

Kiki Smith has, over four decades, pushed sculpture, drawing and installation toward a raw, corporeal and myth-laden language. Her fragile human and animal bodies have entered leading museum collections and continue to be reinstalled in changing constellations across Europe and the United States.

Museum presences of Kiki Smith

Museums were early to recognize Kiki Smith’s significance for feminist and body-oriented sculpture, and works by her are now held by institutions from MoMA in New York to the Tate in London. MoMA lists works such as the glass and mixed-media sculpture Peacock (2013) in its collection, illustrating how Smith connects animal symbolism with questions of display, gender and spirituality as part of the museum’s postwar holdings MoMA collection entry for 'Peacock'.

The Tate in London holds major pieces that foreground bodily vulnerability, including the work Lilith (1994), a sculpture of a female figure clinging to the wall and gazing back at the viewer with glass eyes. In the Tate’s interpretation, this work repositions the biblical Lilith as an unsettling presence above the viewer, disrupting conventional, upright sculptural display and insisting on a more precarious encounter Tate collection text on 'Lilith'.

Collections, bodies and narrative threads

Other museums have focused on Kiki Smith’s capacity to weave narrative and corporeal fragments across media. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. notes, in its collection texts, her recurring interest in the female body, mortality and religious iconography, often realized in fragile materials such as paper, glass and wax, which emphasize the body’s instability and the porous border between interior and exterior National Gallery of Art artist overview.

In German-speaking contexts, museums such as the Museum Folkwang in Essen and the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein have presented Smith’s work in collection displays and exhibitions that underscore her dialogue with printmaking and drawing. These institutions highlight how she extends sculptural thinking into works on paper, where organs, constellations and mythic figures form diagrammatic, often serial narratives that parallel her three-dimensional pieces.

The work core and recurring motifs

Kiki Smith’s practice spans sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography and installation, but a focus on the body remains constant. From the late 1980s onward she investigated internal organs and bodily fluids, translating them into wax, paper and cast materials to challenge how museums frame medical and religious imagery.

Over time, animals, celestial bodies and folklore entered her vocabulary, often as companions or counter-figures to the human body. Wolves, deer and birds appear in sculptures and prints that position the body in wider ecological and mythic systems, while stars and constellations suggest a cosmological dimension to questions of vulnerability and care.

Where the artist stands now

At present, Kiki Smith’s work remains firmly embedded in leading museum collections and collection displays, with no newly announced institutional date in the immediate 30-day horizon but with continuing relevance in debates on bodies, gender and ecology.

This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.