BROOKLYN, NY.- Kiki Smith, one of the most influential conceptual and figurative artists of her generation, will be honored at the Brooklyn Museum’s seventh annual Women in the Arts luncheon on Thursday, November 19, 2009. Proceeds from the event, which is organized by the Museum’s Community Committee, a volunteer organization, will benefit a wide range of Museum programs.

With a career spanning more than three decades, Kiki Smith has produced a body of work unique in its engagement with social and political mores, particularly as they relate to the physical experiences and emotional lives of women. She has worked in a remarkably wide range of media: best known as a sculptor, she is also an adept printmaker and draftsman and has recently turned to the media of stained glass and installation.

One of three artist daughters of the late Minimalist sculptor Tony Smith (1912–1980), Smith at an early age helped her father fashion cardboard models for his monumental geometric sculptures. Her interest in the body as subject manifested itself early in her career and was augmented by her training as an emergency medical technician. By the mid-1980s, she had gained a reputation for work that focused on the biological systems of human bodies. Themes of regeneration, birth, and the cycles of life proliferate in her art. Her early affiliation with the political action and artists’ collaborative group Colab fostered her interest in print media and the adaptation of commercial strategies for disseminating information.

Smith gained international fame with her first major New York exhibition in 1988, and her influence has continued to grow through more than 150 solo exhibitions. She was the 2009 recipient of the Edward MacDowell Medal and was also honored with a Skowhegan Medal for sculpture in 2001.

The program will begin at 11 a.m. and will feature a conversation between Smith and Catherine Morris, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, focusing on the inspirations and creative process involved in putting together her upcoming major installation, Kiki Smith: Sojourn, opening at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art on February 5, 2010.