Tidal
Artist: Kiki Smith (American, born 1954)
Publisher: LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies
Date: 1998
Dimensions:
box: 12 x 10 7/8 x 1 in. (305 x 276 x 25mm)
book: 10 1/4 x 9 11/16 in. (260 x 246mm)
book: 49.5 x 320.7 cm (19 1/2 x 126 1/4 in.)
Medium: Original prints: photogravures on Hahnemuehle paper
Reproductions: photolithographs of photographs on Kizukishi paper
Text: screenprinting in white
Photogravure, photo lithography and silkscreen
Classification: Books
Credit Line: Mrs. George W. Stevens Fund
Object number: 1999.6
Label Text:Since the 1980s, Kiki Smith’s multidisciplinary practice has explored the human body, the natural world, and the spirit embodied in each. Tidal: I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me is an accordion-folded panorama of 13 full moons over tidal waters. Smith joins her photographs of the moon taken at an astronomical observatory with ocean elements that are then printed on semi-translucent, handmade Kizukishi paper, an almost cloth-like type of Japanese paper. Noted for her use of wax, glass, and paper materials to suggest the fragility and ephemeral nature of human existence, Smith’s choice of material is also inspired by its luminescence and ability to evoke the fluid movement of ocean tides.
With the subtitle of the work, Smith suggests the moon is a living entity that sees and is connected to her. The moon has potent symbolism, associated with many spiritual and religious traditions, as well as environmental and biological cycles. It is often associated with women, and Smith seems to allude to the gendered natural world and our engagement with it.
With the subtitle of the work, Smith suggests the moon is a living entity that sees and is connected to her. The moon has potent symbolism, associated with many spiritual and religious traditions, as well as environmental and biological cycles. It is often associated with women, and Smith seems to allude to the gendered natural world and our engagement with it.
DescriptionAccordion fold book with two different papers, meant to be viewed completely opened and unfolded; the joins are bound with strips of black linen. The book is housed in a black cloth box, screenprinted in black on the front.
Not on view
In Collection(s)