Niki de Saint Phalle

A key contributor to Nouveau Réalisme in early 1960s Paris, Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) worked alongside artists such as Arman, Yves Klein, and Jean Tinguely, scavenging real objects in place of traditional art materials. She connected art to life by instrumentalizing household items, machine parts, and even toys for her early assemblages. Saint Phalle created her first shooting painting, or Tir, in 1961, and went on to conduct these performances in such varied locations as the Impasse Ronsin in Paris, a garden in Amsterdam, a sandpit outside Stockholm, and the Malibu Hills. Reliefs made of plaster, small objects, paint, wood, and wire were punctured by the bullets of a gun. This book provides an introduction to Saint Phalle’s work, highlighting some of her most important contributions to 20th century art. From birthing mothers to harbingers of death, she created sculptures that celebrated and exposed the female form in works such as Pink Birth (1964) and Hon En Kathedral (1966). She also used real-life figures as inspiration: her early Nana sculptures are named after the artist’s women friends and family members. She later extended her practice to films such as Daddy (1973), artist’s books including AIDS: You Can’t Catch it Holding Hands (1987), and the Tarot Garden, a monumental sculpture park with figures modeled on the 22 named cards of the Major Arcana figures in the Tarot deck, the karmic cards of destiny.

A key contributor to Nouveau Réalisme in early 1960s Paris, Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) worked alongside artists such as Arman, Yves Klein, and Jean Tinguely, scavenging real objects in place of traditional art materials. She connected art to life by instrumentalizing household items, machine parts, and even toys for her early assemblages. Saint Phalle created her first shooting painting, or Tir, in 1961, and went on to conduct these performances in such varied locations as the Impasse Ronsin in Paris, a garden in Amsterdam, a sandpit outside Stockholm, and the Malibu Hills. Reliefs made of plaster, small objects, paint, wood, and wire were punctured by the bullets of a gun. This book provides an introduction to Saint Phalle’s work, highlighting some of her most important contributions to 20th century art. From birthing mothers to harbingers of death, she created sculptures that celebrated and exposed the female form in works such as Pink Birth (1964) and Hon En Kathedral (1966). She also used real-life figures as inspiration: her early Nana sculptures are named after the artist’s women friends and family members. She later extended her practice to films such as Daddy (1973), artist’s books including AIDS: You Can’t Catch it Holding Hands (1987), and the Tarot Garden, a monumental sculpture park with figures modeled on the 22 named cards of the Major Arcana figures in the Tarot deck, the karmic cards of destiny.

Her sensual Nanas —buxom, colorful female figures laid the foundation for her international success beyond the art world: Niki de Saint Phalle. But the self-taught artist’s creative spectrum is much broader, and her unconventional oeuvre, ranging from painting and drawing to assemblages, performances, theatre, film, and architecture, is more subversive and critical of society than is widely assumed. Based on her efforts to process her own feelings, she addressed social and political issues, critically questioning institutions and role models in ways that are as relevant today as they have ever been. The exhibition and the publication shed new light on the artist’s exceptional personality and uncover the wide-ranging oeuvre of the popular outsider—that is always surprising and eccentric, emotional, dark and brutal, humorous and cheerful.

Influenced by Gaudi's Parc Guell in Barcelona, and the mannerist park of Bomarzo, Niki de Saint Phalle decided that she wanted to make something similar; a monumental sculpture park created by a woman. In 1974, she was donated some land in Garavicchio, Tuscany, about 100 km north-west of Rome along the coast. The garden, on which planning started in 1978, contains sculptures of the symbols found on Tarot cards. It opened in 1998, after more than 20 years of work. The garden was still incomplete when Niki de Saint Phalle died. With elaborate illustrations and sensitively written texts this book presents in detail the formation of the garden and the underlying ideas.

Influenced by Gaudi's Parc Guell in Barcelona, and the mannerist park of Bomarzo, Niki de Saint Phalle decided that she wanted to make something similar; a monumental sculpture park created by a woman. In 1974, she was donated some land in Garavicchio, Tuscany, about 100 km north-west of Rome along the coast. The garden, on which planning started in 1978, contains sculptures of the symbols found on Tarot cards. It opened in 1998, after more than 20 years of work. The garden was still incomplete when Niki de Saint Phalle died. With elaborate illustrations and sensitively written texts this book presents in detail the formation of the garden and the underlying ideas.