Kiki Smith's sculpture of a pregnant belly exemplifies the fascination with and investigation of the functions, processes, and gendered character of the human body that have played a vital role in contemporary art since the 1980s. This belly (or "shield") circumvents the stigmatized representation of the female body by offering a particularized experience of the physical fact of pregnancy.
       Untitled IV (Shield) is the last in a series of four pregnant bellies, each a unique cast in plaster taken from the body of one of the artist's friends.1 Each of the four has a hand-modeled, shieldlike rim, and each is tinted to resemble the color of skin. Although shown together in 1990 at Fawbush Gallery in New York City, Smith conceived of the Shields as independent works.
        With these four works, Smith entered the highly charged, politicized debate over the representation of the female body. Traditionally depicting woman as seductress (as in Modigliani's Nude with Coral Necklace, AMAM inv. 55.59), images of the female nude have been subject to harsh critique since the mid 1970s by feminist artists and art historians for objectifying the female body.2 Smith boldly tackled one of the most taboo subjects in this arena--the pregnant nude body. Despite the fact that we are all a product of the birthing process, images of pregnancy are rare in Western art. Notwithstanding a handful of such images by modern women artists--for example, the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker at the turn of the century or Alice Neel in the 1970s3--the prohibition against representing such portentous female bodily processes still exists.
        In the Oberlin sculpture, Smith largely avoids the politics of representation by foregrounding the phenomenological experience of the protruding belly and its topography. As one approaches the work, it appears less like a device for general bodily defense and more like a shield to protect a very particular and present belly. The almost tactile experience of viewing the hairs, skin pores, and goose bumps, as well as the protrusions of the baby's body, give a powerful sense of corporal presence. Even the elastic band of the model's underwear is visible.
        Smith's work is not without political content, however. Although she works intuitively and from a deep personal level, she also acknowledges the political and social ramifications of her pieces. In an unpublished interview with art historian Elizabeth Otto, Smith discussed the Oberlin Shield in terms of such feminist issues as reproductive freedom and suggested that it could be considered a defensive shield to protect rights that could be taken from us.4

P. Mathews