Lodestar, Kiki Smith's current show at Pace Gallery features 30 paintings on blown-glass panels that depict "the cycle of a woman’s life" (from Pace website). Lodestar runs concurrently with Smith's exhibition Sojourn at the Brooklyn Museum (through September 12th), as well as I Myself Have Seen It: Photography in the Work of Kiki Smith at Seattle's Henry Art Gallery (through August 15th).
Though Smith works in various mediums, she became interested in glass via Christopher Wilmarth, a friend of her father's, the late Minimalist sculptor, Tony Smith. The New York-based Smith began working with glass in the 80's, at a time when the medium was looked down upon and considered crafty. She has spent the past five years working on the pieces in Lodestar. Like much of her work, the life-size figures in Lodestar reference religion and spirituality. The three wide, minimal, wooden benches in the gallery, designed by the architect Bill Katz (who also designed the metal stands for the glass panels), allow visitors to sit, observe, and interpret Smith's series of delicate, ghostly images depicting the universal stages of a woman's life. Learn more about Lodestar at thepacegallery.com and Sojourn at brooklynmuseum.org. Art Observed has more information and photos of the artist at work. Through June 19th.
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