Words by Kiki Smith about color still
In 2003, Cai Guo-Qiang invited me to conceive a work for his DMoCA (Dragon Museum of Contemporary Art) in Japan. On that occasion, I created “Pause,” a work consisting of 9 ceramic sculptures of seated women placed inside a typical Japanese kiln, which serves as the museum. Their repetition refers to individual frames of a film.
Each young woman sat alone with a bundle of wood, resting after collecting firewood in the forest. Recently, Cai asked me to include a piece in his 2008 exhibition “Everything is Museum,” which coincided with his traveling retrospective. For that show, I proposed one of the young girls, dressed in a blue outfit. She became one of the guards assigned to care for the museum. Later, when he asked me to create a work for the UMoCA (Under Museum of Contemporary Art) in Colle di Val d’Elsa, I brought three of the girls to Italy for this new occasion: one in a red dress, one in blue, and one in yellow. Each of them was placed sitting beneath one of the arches through which the museum’s spaces unfold.
The arches of the bridge, each unique yet repetitive like still frames from a film, immediately gave me the opportunity to reference “Pause.” The people of Colle di Val d’Elsa and Mario Cristiani from Associazione Arte Continua gave me the chance to work in collaboration with the well-known crystal consortium of Colle. They produced, for the occasion, a multitude of enlarged light bulbs in blown crystal. The light bulbs represent the ignition of inspiration, imagination, and clarity brought by light, which in turn represents the meaning of ideas. The light illuminates each sculpture, celebrating the deep and mysterious connection between the girls and the universe. There is great importance in the relationship of the girls with nature, precisely because of our future. Without consciously reflecting on Cai’s immense work with rainbows and colors, I noticed how the museum’s arches mimic the nature of the rainbow and illuminate the space at night with a rainbow of colored lights. At night, the light bulbs capture the colors and animate the arches, creating a “night rainbow.” Thus, we find ourselves in a mystical and mythological place, reminiscent of the early experiments in film projection. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to create a work beneath the road that leads to the monastery dedicated to Saint Francis, precisely because he represents the spiritual interconnectedness of human beings with the natural world. In reference to Saint Francis, the light bulbs illuminate both past and present conditions and bring attention to the connections between the functions of the public bridge, the children’s park, the community, and the natural environment of Colle di Val d’Elsa and the world at large.
Words by Cai about color still
color still is the third solo exhibition at UMoCA. The first event brought to Colle the works of Ni Tsai-Chin, a curator and artist from Taiwan, followed by the presentation of Jennifer Wen Ma, Chinese by origin, now permanently based in the United States. I am moved that Kiki Smith is the third presence at UMoCA. In Kiki’s exhibition, the central element is a young girl. She appeared for the first time in my curatorial project in 2003, titled Pause, where a group of identical girls were gathered around a fire in a forest, aligned like a choir, almost on a path toward paradise, in search of a place of peace and salvation to rest. Later, with my series Everything is Museum, during my mid-career retrospective, the girls traveled from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, to the National Museum of Art in Beijing, and to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The girl, always seated at the entrance of the exhibition, seemed just like a museum guardian. It was hard to tell whether she was an artwork or a visitor looking at a work of art. Now the girl makes her journey beneath the arches of the ancient stone bridge in the picturesque Colle di Val d’Elsa, gazing beyond the centuries-old Tuscan town, with her gaze turned toward the chaos of the highway. Perhaps her mind is wandering elsewhere, or nowhere – she is on pause. My MoCA series includes DMoCA (Dragon Museum of Contemporary Art), which was created from a kiln originally used for firing porcelain (Dragon Kiln) in my hometown, Quanzhou. The kiln, rebuilt brick by brick on Tsunan Mountain, has become a gathering place for cultural events. Some bunkers transformed on Kinmen Island have now become BMoCA (Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art), which welcomes countless visitors from China, where cannons once pointed. Colle di Val d’Elsa is one of the world’s leading centers of crystal production. By integrating artisanal skill with the touch of an international artist, Kiki Smith, I hope that color still can embody a new idea and new artistic possibilities. An artist like me, director and curator of UMoCA, would like to make it not only a museum but also a true bridge, connecting Colle di Val d’Elsa with cultures from all over the world.
