“I always think the whole history of the world is in your body,” Kiki Smith has said, a line that could sum up her artistic practice. Born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1954, a daughter of the artist Tony Smith and the singer Jane Lawrence, Smith grew up in New Jersey, where the family moved when she was still a baby. Losing her father and sister in the 1980s, and witnessing the onslaught of the AIDS crisis, Smith’s early focus was the biology, sexuality, and mortality of the human body. Her art then expanded to express a fealty with nature and its creatures, and a feeling for the enigma of the universe. Smith’s poetics flow through many mediums, and this exhibition—her first Los Angeles solo show in 30 years—offers an overview of her work, including the important early bronze sculptures Virgin Mary (1994) and Blood Pool (1992), as well as investigations in papier mâché, beeswax, polyester resin, and fiberglass. —Laura Jacobs