American Art Collaborative

In her artistic practice Kiki Smith admits to being motivated by “an unquenchable obsession with the vulnerability of the human body,” particularly the female form. For Smith the body becomes a dynamic site through which questions of identity and sexual politics may be raised. Since the 1990s, Smith has borrowed dramatic female protagonists from children’s books and fairy tales, and Fainting Woman represents Alice from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Underground (more commonly known as Alice in Wonderland) tipping backwards. Smith renders this moment ambiguous by removing Alice from any recognizable storybook setting, and the character’s vulnerability is emphasized instead, as she remains forever frozen in this free-fall. Among Smith’s inspirations is twentieth-century sculptor Elie Nadelman. Indeed, the curvilinear contours and formal simplification of Fainting Woman recall Nadelman’s sculptural technique. Two sculptures by Nadelman, The Hostess and Classical Head, are also on view in the adjacent gallery.