Yvette Kaiser-Smith

March 4, 2007

Modular Sculptures Address Beauty & Identity through Mathematical Formulas

Yvette Kaiser-Smith: digits

March 14 – May 17, 2008

Chicago---Alfedena Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new work by sculptor Yvette Kaiser-Smith, titled digits, from March 14 – May 17, 2008. This is the artist’s first solo show at Alfedena Gallery.  A reception for the artist will be held on Friday, March 14, 5:00-8:00 p.m. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Yvette Kaiser-Smith (born, Prague 1958) uses her insatiable appetite for the logic of math to order a chaotic world. Born and raised in the Communist society of Czechoslovakia before moving with her family to Texas in the late 1960s, Kaiser-Smith has found in the vocabulary of math and the forms of science a method of subliminally addressing identity and displacement. Digits presents the largest wall-mounted sculptures the artist has created to date.

Kaiser-Smith’s chosen material since the early 1990s, fiberglass, is crocheted into delicate planes which are then hardened through the use of polyester resin and molded into architectural forms through the use of gravity and armatures. Her use of soft materials for sculpture and domestic techniques, such as crocheting, are indebted to Eva Hesse’s ground-breaking sculpture of the mid-60s. She shares with Hesse, herself displaced from her native community, a continuous dialogue on how the individual is connected to and defined by society. In the case of Kaiser-Smith’s work this is suggested through the metaphors of abstract, lace-like forms that appear to be in a constant state of coupling.

The title of Kaiser-Smith’s exhibition, digits, alludes to the individual who can become, or not become, part of a greater whole of the community as represented by the structure of the mathematical formula. Is this a sentiment that echoes dormant socialist values or the propaganda of American marketing that suggests belonging is linked to shared consumer values, whether it is what we buy or who we vote for? In keeping with her Post-Minimalist predecessors, Kaiser-Smith allows that question to remain locked in the clarity and beauty of numbers.

Her work based on Pascal’s Triangle use the formula to create two triangles of multiple tent-like forms protruding from the wall that touch in the middle to create a huge hourglass form. The sequence of adding digits creates the forms the viewer sees. Structure in Kaiser-Smith’s work is not subjective. Yet the thousand of hours of handwork Kaiser-Smith has put into crocheting each slightly “irregular” digit implies individuality cannot be totally removed from the success of the whole and that beauty is ultimately defined not by perfection but by very human flaws.

Yvette Kaiser-Smith received an MFA (1994) from the University of Chicago and a BFA (1990) from Southern Methodist University, Dallas. She has exhibited nationally and in Moscow, Russia. Her work was awarded Best of Show at the 2000 Midwestern Exhibition at the Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL, and the Connoisseurs Award in 2002 at the North American Sculpture Exhibition in Golden, Colorado. She lives and works in Chicago.

To view images of the exhibition visit the web site, www.alfedenagallery.com.

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