a studio visit with mimi smith or why does the squeaky wheel always get the grease? |

It’d been a shamefully long time since I’d been to my Mimi Smith‘s studio. She recalls 1997:( I of course don’t recall at all because I’m terrible with dates. I remember the space instantly though, reconstituting all its contours and nooks the second the door opened. I love that feeling of space. It didn’t seem possible that so much time had gone by. The last time I was there I was taking notes for an essay on her work for Performance Art Journal (PAJ).

I remember finding the word count daunting until I realized there was so much to say because, inexplicably, so few had traveled this terrain before. It seemed incredulous given so much precedence in her work, especially its integration of Fluxus, process-based, and second-wave feminist art; and use of clothing as sculptural form. I tried to convey all that, and just how brilliantly she wed the Fluxus interest in intermedia and the everyday (as subject and medium) with feminist and Pop explorations of all things “domestic”. Perhaps its the peculiar combination of irony and intimacy that marks her early work that made its reception problematic at a time when women artists like Carolee Schneemann and Smith were marginalized for sexualized imagery. Regardless, Smith has naturally continued to make and exhibit work, leaving a rich forest of reviews and texts, though she is overdue for a museum survey. And another serious look at her work, which a blog post obviously can’t accomplish.

Unassuming and generous, Mimi immediately put me at ease, and then fifteen minutes into our visit she mentions Bob Watts and Robert Morris who she studied with at Rutger’s. In its heyday (1958-72), I’ve always imagined Rutger’s to be an ideal place-time-space moment in art history. A radical experiment unfettered by institutional, art world politics. And it seems it was. Because when Mimi talks about Mass Art in Boston where she went for her undergrad, she recollects in her nonplussed way, how a faculty member used to regularly stick his brush up the female students’ skirts for laughs. WTF. And when I observed how beautiful her drawings of underwear, shoes, and dresses are – bodies of work that poignantly represent a woman’s life cycle – she wryly tells me how another told her how great her draughtsmanship was, even better than his, he added, communicating that because he knew she’d soon be married he wasn’t threatened. (Smith is also a very talented seamstress, she showed me an exquisite silk-lined cranberry wool cape with intricate sleeve detailing, and a wonderful bespoke suit she made for her little boy, objects she’s using in a new series).

Anyway, I wanted to share her work with you, so here are some quick shots I took in dwindling light, from her iconic steel wool peignoir and bubble dress works of the mid-1960s to the ongoing drawing series I mentioned, and a number of other wonderful works in-between like her knitted test tube baby and an early 1980s example of her paintings of old computer game lingo! Any other queries can be sent to her gallery, Anna Kustera, where one can read her biography for references to other writing, reviews, etc. And one can see MUCH BETTER IMAGES here.

Biography, detail, 1996