Columba, 2025, Bronze, edition of 5 + 1 AP, 127 × 180 × 6,4 cm © Kiki Smith / Courtesy Galerie Lelong
Birds have long occupied a place between worlds, traversing the space between earth and sky while carrying centuries of symbolic meaning. In Flight, a new exhibition at Galerie Lelong in Paris, Kiki Smith draws upon this rich visual and cultural history, bringing together bronze sculptures, stained glass works, prints, and drawings. The exhibition considers flight not simply as a physical act, but as a state of transition that exists between the corporeal and the spiritual, the observed and the imagined.
Throughout her career, Smith has explored the relationships that bind humans to the natural world. Rather than treating the body as separate from its surroundings, she situates it within a larger continuum of animals, plants, celestial bodies, and cycles of renewal. In Flight, birds become vessels for these ideas, embodying migration and change.
Drawing from mythology, Smith uses recurring avian forms to examine how humans project meaning onto the nonhuman world. Eagles, owls, and doves appear throughout the exhibition as both living creatures and symbolic figures. Their presence reflects Smith’s enduring interest in the stories that emerge from encounters with nature and the ways those stories shape our understanding of ourselves and our place within a larger ecosystem.
Material plays an equally important role in the exhibition. Bronze and stained glass, two mediums steeped in histories of devotion and monumentality, allow Smith to explore the relationship between permanence and impermanence. Light moves through the stained glass, shifting throughout the day and transforming static forms into changing experiences. The works oscillate between solidity and ephemerality, reinforcing the exhibition’s focus on passage.
In Flight, Smith uses avian imagery to reflect on humanity’s enduring fascination with what lies beyond reach. The exhibition presents flight as both a natural phenomenon and a metaphor for transformation, inviting viewers to consider the connections between the earthly and the celestial, and the individual and the collective.
Flight is on view at Galerie Lelong in Paris through July 11, 2026.
At Galerie Lelong in Paris, Kiki Smith’s Flight brings together bronze sculptures, stained glass works, prints, and drawings centered on birds as the primary subject.
The exhibition presents recurring avian figures such as owls, eagles, and doves, rendered in Smith’s drawings, printmaking, bronze, and colored glass.
Horizon, 2024, Bronze, edition of 9 + 1 AP, 39 × 79 × 53 cm © Kiki Smith / Courtesy Galerie Lelong
Sungrazer VIII, 2019, Bronze, edition of 3 + 1 AP, 272 × 122 × 122 cm © Kiki Smith / Courtesy Galerie Lelong
Wooden Moon, 2022, Ink and watercolor on Xuan paper, Edition of 18 exemplaires + 6 AP + 6 HC, 244 × 366 cm © Kiki Smith / Courtesy Galerie Lelong
Installed across multiple media, Flight reflects Smith’s long-standing focus on how humans observe and interpret the natural world through animal forms and symbolic imagery.
Exhibition Information:
Kiki Smith
Flight
May 21–July 11, 2026
Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris
13 Rue de Téhéran, 75008 Paris, France
Galerie Lelong: Website | Instagram
My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Galerie Lelong.
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