Title: Kiki Smith, Lying with the Wolf – Smarthistory
Headings: Kiki Smith,
Lying with the Wolf

Kiki Smith, Lying with the Wolf
Intimate Relationships with Nature
Feminist Approaches to Narrative
“Walking Around in a Garden”
Abjection and The Body
Mysticism and Mythologies
Additional resources

Content: The wolf’s wildness is tamed, and both figures seem to nurture one another, floating within the abstract space of the textured paper surface upon which they are delicately drawn. Smith imbues a story that is normally quite violent with a kind of tenderness that is characteristic of her overall aesthetic. Feminist Approaches to Narrative
It has been suggested by some critics that Smith’s reinterpretations of Red Riding Hood and Sainte Geneviève represent a feminist approach to popular folktales. This is supported by her placement of “woman” amidst the natural world, but also, importantly, at a structural level: in the way in which the two narratives are fragmented and combined. Borrowing from divergent sources in order to forge a new storyline, Smith demonstrates the slippery relationship between a visual image and its multiple references, adopting a narrative style indebted to feminist re-writings of history. As the curator Helaine Posner has explained: “ Instead of presenting them in their traditional roles as predator and prey, Smith re-imagined these characters as companions, equals in purpose and scale.” The distinction between “predator” and “prey” might be thought of as a metaphor for hierarchies of power in human relationships, which have traditionally been drawn along the lines of gender, race, and class. Because patriarchal societies typically grant more power to men, while requiring women to be submissive or dependent, we can think of this “overturning” in Smith’s art as a political statement against such inequalities.