Two I like

These two works are currently in the contemporary portion of the permanent collection gallery:



1) Kiki Smith "Lilith" (1994, bronze & Glass)

There's a good chance I like this work mostly because it looks like a mix of Rebecca Romijn's character from the X-Men films and some sort of spiderwoman. How comic-booky of me, eh? The piece is just badass - a heavy bronze cast hangs inverted on the gallery wall as the figure's cold glass eyes beam your way. Although Smith makes her casts from actual human models, she manages to make this work seem more like a creature than a person. The texture of the casting reminds me of some 19th century work, with the roughness and the touch of the artist intact As for the title, here is what I found online:

Lilith is a biblical figure who has long been adopted by feminists. In Jewish lore, she is the first wife of Adam, exiled from the Garden of Eden for her unwillingness to bend to Adam’s will, and is ultimately replaced by Eve. In this mythical story, she is cast out and becomes a demon bringing death and disease to those she encounters throughout history. Feminist literature invokes her image as a woman literally demonized because of her unwillingness to be subservient. Lilith is thus both a sympathetic and a terrifying figure.

2) Katharina Fritsch "Kind mit Pudeln (Baby with Poodles)" 1995/1996 plaster, foil, polyurethane, and paint

Here is the wall text. I don't buy all of it ("Fritsch chose the poodle as a dog that is cute and beguiling but can also be aggressive and mean" & "While out walking, Faust sees a black poodle and brings it home, unknowingly inviting the devil into his study. The baby suggests the innocence of children at birth, untouched by evil and misfortune.") I just think the repeated poodles are fanciful and friggin cute. I'd like to take one home and stick it in my lawn.

Four circles of 224 poodles, arranged in tight, densely packed rings, surround an infant poised on an eight-pointed gold star. The points of the star create eight radiating axes by which the poodles are aligned. The result is a stunning visual play of repetitive patterns in space.
Fritsch's intention is to lodge an indelible visual image in the mind of the viewer, indissolubly fusing experience and memory. Although some viewers may find the poodles threatening, they also appear to be on alert watch, guarding over the child. And despite the ominous atmosphere, a strange undercurrent of humor is present in the quirky oddness of both the poodles and the baby.
Fritsch chose the poodle as a dog that is cute and beguiling but can also be aggressive and mean. Soon after completing the piece, she recalled that a poodle appears in the story of Faust, retold in a nineteenth-century novel by Johann Wolfgang Goethe that is known to every German schoolchild. While out walking, Faust sees a black poodle and brings it home, unknowingly inviting the devil into his study. The baby suggests the innocence of children at birth, untouched by evil and misfortune. As it begins the journey of life, it must face the tensions of civilization and the potential for corruption.