Light Catcher by Kiki Smith is an exquisite edition in biscuit porcelain from Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg. The series comes in an edition of 18 + 4 AP. Aside from the qualities cited by Nymphenburg, the work engages in time as well, a shadow of nostalgia that takes us back to when light sockets were made of porcelain and not plastic or metal as they are today.
Smith has been one of the internationally-acclaimed contemporary female artists since the late 1980s. Her artistic oeuvre examines sources and communication of artistic expression: exploring subjects evolving around human existence, life per se and sources of creative inspiration from various angles in a wide range of interdisciplinary media, including sculpture, drawings, video and photography.
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Her limited series Light Catcher switched on during a two-year exchange and ongoing dialogue in close collaboration with Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg. This edition has been created without sketches but rather primarily through an intuitive process. The artist worked directly with the objects throughout the developing stage.
Whilst Manufaktur specifically made the casting molds for this ambitious project, Smith individually modeled and shaped the snow-white broken porcelain light bulbs so every piece of this edition becomes a unique artwork, a series rather than an edition.
The notion of the “light bulb“ recalls serendipity and “the happy idea” of light at its center. It raises questions about how to communicate, translate and mediate artistic ideas as sources of creative inspiration. Charged with symbolism, for Smith light as matter is a metaphor for enlightenment, creativity, progress, spiritual transformation and personal development.
She sees the light bulb as an archaic object, a simple yet fragile symbol of energy-transmission. This includes the possibility of “failure” for which Smith has coined a memorable image: broken light bulbs made of snow-white biscuit porcelain, superbly crafted by the skilled artisans of Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg.
Kiki Smith (Born1954 in Nuremburg, lives and works in New York) is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and participated in the Venice Biennial and the Whitney Biennial. Selected solo exhibitions include, amongst others: Kiki Smith: Prints, Books and Things, The Museum of Modern Art, NY, 2003 / Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980-2005, Whitney Museum, NY, 2006-2007 / Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2006 / Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2006 / San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2005-2006; Her Home, Kunsthalle Nuremburg / Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld, 2008 / Her Memory, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 2009 / Myself Have Seen It: Photograpy & Kiki Smith, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois / The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, New York und Scottsdale Museum of Cemporary Art, Arizona, 2010.
Text (edited) and photography by Nymphenburg Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg, copyright Kiki Smith 2015.
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Kiki Smith. Photographs courtesy of the artist and Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg.
Love the exploding light bulb. Not nostalgic, rather, an “idea” goes off in my head.
“Add-ons” in ceramic art are very contemporary. In this case the add-on shard adds energy to the light. Shards, real or made, are uaually found in the ground or in the floor…after a fall.
Kiki attaches them to the air…like clouds to a baloon.
Bravo.