Site-Specific Work by Kiki Smith Commissioned by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco for New de Young Museum

1/31/2005

Large-Scale Sculpture Incorporates Images from 17th Century Painting in Permanent Collection and Elements Echoing Copper Skin of New Building

New de Young Reopens October 15, 2005

San Francisco, January 31, 2005--As the new de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park approaches completion, Director Harry S. Parker III has announced that Kiki Smith (b. 1954) has been commissioned to create a site-specific work for the new building. The large-scale sculpture, a gift of Dorothy and George Saxe and the Friends of New Art, reinterprets The Mason Children: David, Joanna, and Abigail (1670) attributed to the Freake-Gibbs Painter, a holding of the de Young’s American Paintings Collection. Elements of the piece will also evoke the unconventional layout and dramatic copper skin of Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the new building, which opens on October 15, 2005.

“The de Young is actively expanding its collection of contemporary art, and we are delighted to have this opportunity to collaborate with Kiki, who is one of the foremost artistic voices in our country today,” said Harry Parker. “We look forward to seeing Smith’s piece, which will mesh beautifully with both the new building and the Museum’s mission.”

Reflecting her ongoing interest in representations of women and women’s bodies, Smith’s piece willincorporate the images in silhouette of Joanna and Abigail Mason from the painting using gilt and copper leaf. In the painting the two girls are wearing red coral jewelry, which was used as a talisman against evil or death. Smith’s images of the two girls recall milagro or santos religious tradition, in which votive images are used as intermediaries for supplicants seeking divine intervention. These elements resonate with religious imagery in the original painting.

The sculpture will consist of a cast-bronze framework that resembles an unfolded cardboard box, echoing the distinct nature of Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the new de Young. This metal framework will surround the Freake-Gibbs Painter images and hang suspended above an arrangement of glass teardrops. Timothy Anglin Burgard, Curator of American Art, notes, “Smith’s use of dozens of hand-blown glass teardrops beneath the bronze superstructure will create a cloudlike effect and simultaneously evoke feelings of solidity and permanence as well as the vaporous and ephemeral. Her installation will physically crown the Saxe Gallery [located on the main level of the museum], but will also spiritually crown the fragile humanity embodied by the Mason children.”

This new commissioned work will be the first large-scale sculpture by Smith to enter the permanent collections. Other works by the artist currently in the holdings of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco include twenty-one prints and a 1993 drawing Untitled, which is a promised gift of Dorothy and George Saxe.

Kiki Smith
As a leading force in American contemporary art, Kiki Smith’s work is varied in both subject and medium. With a specific focus on the human body, especially the female form, Smith often incorporates religious imagery and references to folktales in her acclaimed sculptures, prints, photographs, and multi-media works. Employing materials as diverse as glass, bronze, ceramic, beeswax, fiber, and human hair, Smith blends the line between art and craft and addresses important societal issues, such as the marginalization of women and personal spirituality.

Smith’s work was the focus of a comprehensive solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in 2003. Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, and Things showcased the scope of Smith’s printed art, presenting it thematically, with a focus on such topics as anatomy, self-portraiture, nature, and female iconography.

The New de Young: Site-Specific Commissions
In addition to Kiki Smith, the de Young has commissioned other leading contemporary artists Gerhard Richter, James Turrell, and Andy Goldsworthy to create site-specific works for the new building. Gerhard Richter will create a large-scale mural out of digitally manipulated photographs that together form a geometric black-and-white motif. The monumental untitled piece, constructed of 130 digital prints mounted on aluminum with Plexiglas coating, will be installed in the Diane Buchanan and Alfred Spalding Wilsey Court, the central public gathering space of the new de Young.

The de Young has also commissioned the native California artist James Turrell to create a “Skyspace” for the museum’s Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden. Three Gems, Turrell’s first “Skyspace” in the form of a stupa or dome, which will be built into a hill within the garden, features a view of the sky altered by lighting effects that will change with light and weather conditions outside.

A third commission by Andy Goldsworthy takes its inspiration from the unique character of California’s tectonic topography. Goldsworthy will create a continuous crack running north from the edge of the Music Concourse roadway in front of the museum, up the main walkway, into the exterior courtyard, and to the main entrance door. Along its path, this crack will bisect--and cleave in two--large rough-hewn stone boulders that will serve as seating for museum visitors.

About the New de Young
Founded in 1895 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the de Young museum has been an integral part of the cultural fabric of the city and a cherished destination for millions of residents and visitors to the region for over 100 years. In fall 2005, the de Young museum will re-open in a new facility designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron and Fong & Chan Architects in San Francisco. The new de Young will provide San Francisco with a landmark art museum to showcase the museum’s significant collections of American art from the 17th through the 20th century, art from Central and South America, and art from the Pacific and Africa.

The de Young museum and its sister museum, the Legion of Honor, together comprise the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the largest public arts institution in the city and one of the largest art museums in the United States.