Kiki Smith: Printmaking | "Exclusive" | Art21

[KIKI SMITH: PRINTMAKING]

[SMITH, OFF SCREEN] Hi!

[WOMAN] Hi, Kiki.

[WOMAN] We're just in the middle of wiping this.

[SMITH] Oh, good.

How does it look?

[WOMAN] It's good!

[SMITH] So is that too much? Or maybe no...maybe that's fine.

[WOMAN] It might be fine.

[SMITH] Is that too much?

[WOMAN] That? Yeah, well, it's hard to tell.

[SMITH] Don't you think?

[WOMAN] I think so.

[SMITH] And then, we can still...then you can just ink it.

[WOMAN] Yeah, definitely.

[SMITH] Because I think this looks good.

I think those being heavy is okay, kind of.

[WOMAN] Yeah, definitely.

[SMITH] It's Dmitry's birthday tomorrow, so it's good if we finish today.

[ALL LAUGH]

[SMITH] This is a print of a Russian artist named Dmitry Gaev,

who I'm friends with, and most of the men I know are bald... [LAUGHS]

So he was... We were hanging around, and I thought,

"Oh, he has hair!"

So, I like drawing hair, but drawing skin is much more problematic.

[WOMAN] It looks good!

[SMITH] And so this is sort of my first real attempt

at trying to make a person--

to try to move my way up to making flesh.

This is all pretty good.

I think all of that is good.

This could get...

Maybe I could do a little bit lightening up in the mouth here?

Slightly in that one.

This mouth is perfect.

[WOMAN] Yes.

[SMITH] Just like these a little teeny bit,

and then we'll be done!

[LAUGHS]

As I say for the fifteenth time.

[WOMAN] With Kiki, we have to do a lot of proofs, partly because,

I think, she has to consistently go back into it

and see how it comes out, and see the proofs.

There's only so much that you can work on

before you need to see an image of what you're...

On the paper, of what it looks like.

This is the cat, Ginzer,

and it's sort of the first that began the series that now, I think,

Dmitry is coming out of.

And it's just interesting, I think, to see the very first state of this.

So you can really see the transformation that the plate goes through--

that it's so process oriented.

You could see here she's starting to change the direction of the ear,

in this first one.

This is a little further.

Just kind of, you know, it continues.

But this was the final print that was editioned.

And from the very first state, you know,

you can see that there was a huge amount of transformation

and work that goes into it.

[SMITH] Without my glasses, it looks fine.

Yeah, the only thing I don't like are, still, those two lines on the nose.

That they're, like...

Without glasses, everything looks much better.

[WOMAN] Which state is this?

[SMITH] This is fourteenth.

[WOMAN] Fourteenth?

[SMITH] Yeah, we were supposed to finish on the thirteenth.

[ALL LAUGH]

[WOMAN] Now we'll finish on his birthday, though.

[SOUND OF SANDPAPER RUBBING AGAINST PLATE]

[SMITH] This is my poor man's aquatint technique. [LAUGHS]

Which is just sanding the plate, which is really...

Every time you do it, then it kind of erases,

So you have to kind of get it and say at one point,

"It's done."

It's just a way to add texture.

I really like that you just work really slowly--

you build things up very slowly.

Like, for me, I have to make about a million proofs of everything, and...

They know that I like coming here,

When I came here, they gave me a cup of coffee.

[LAUGHS]

I was hooked!

[WOMAN] That's what it's all about.

[SMITH] That's really true.

They made me coffee and I thought,

"Oh, this feels really safe here."

I just, I really love printmaking.

It's like a mystery, you know,

and you're trying to figure out how to rein it in or something.

I don't know, I find printmaking--and also looking at prints--

just endlessly fascinating.