Mimi Smith at the Institute for Contemporary Art - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Review of Exhibitions

Art in America, Nov, 1994 by Nancy Princenthal

The range of subjects addressed in Mimi Smith's work, from gendered dress codes to ecological disaster and the lurking menace of electronic intelligence, is like a checklist of current political concerns - except this artist's oeuvre goes back 30 years. Long before there were Beverly Semmes's literally staggering, Amazonian ball gowns, for example, Smith had quilted a 30-foot-long bridal-gown train from plastic carpet runners, tablecloths and doilies. She also fashioned a 4-footwide plastic bikini, a life-size Recycle Coat made of plastic bags and bottle caps, a jockstrap sewn with tootsie rolls and a bra made of sucking candy. Especially memorable among these early sculptures, which date from 1965 to '72, are a pink nylon peignoir trimmed with ecru lace and steel wool, and a hilarious maternity dress of gray marbleized vinyl, its sleek A-line design interrupted by a big, clear, plastic dome at the midriff. It's hard to imagine funnier or more concise ways to evoke the climate in which '60s feminism emerged - the crosswinds urging women to be sexy and available, bold and independent; to be earth mothers; to be mod. Though she wasn't included in the otherwise unimpeachable "Empty Dress" exhibition organized last year by Nina Felshin for Independent Curators, Inc., there is hardly an artist in that show whose clothing-related work wasn't anticipated in some measure by Smith's.

But clothing is not her only subject. When she moved in 1972 from New York to Cleveland (she has since returned), Smith embarked on a series of roughly life-size contour drawings of home furnishings, wrought from tape measures (for the primary straight lines) and painstakingly knotted black thread for the rest; the method suggests a seamstress assisting a spider. The heroic effort at precision and rectitude results in images of irremediable frailty. Thus rendered were a dresser with a mirror flanked by sconces, a television and a wall phone, a bed, a fireplace and all the major kitchen appliances. Again, it's a surpassingly vivid illustration of another central early feminist concern: the nearly manic concentration entailed in maintaining the trappings (a word used advisedly) of domestic stability.

Less arresting is an extended series of ordinary wall clocks. Throughout the '80s, Smith altered the clocks with images and texts warning of various imminent dangers, from AIDS to nuclear apocalypse. At the end of the decade, she created several series of paintings and books that use the language of computer software - "Ready to communicate," "unprintable error" - to suggest a mischievous animus hidden in electronic communications technology. Other projects have concentrated on environmental hazards, as in a large paper house of 1980. The 10-foot-high structure provides poor sanctuary against the ecological disasters described in tiny script on all its walls and in audiotaped texts broadcast by concealed, interior speakers.

Most recently, Smith has returned to clothing, including an entire line in steel wool. Among the best of the new works is an undershirt made of sheer, white fabric. Its front and back are stitched together to form a grid of sealed pockets, in each of which an inaccessible vitamin pill is secured. It has all the wit of her early work, and the kind of grace that alone can win fatalism a good laugh.