DEPECHE INFO. Toulouse: the project of a Niki de Saint Phalle exhibition at the Abattoirs
The Toulouse Abattoirs Museum is working discreetly on the project of a major exhibition dedicated, in 2022, to the contemporary artist Niki de Saint Phalle.
Colorful, playful, joyful, his works arouse spontaneous sympathy. Will Toulouse residents have the chance to discover sculptures and paintings by Niki de Saint Phalle next year at the Toulouse contemporary art museum, Les Abattoirs? The director, Annabelle Ténèze, and her team are working on it. But, while the great exhibition dedicated to “La Dame à la Licorne”, the masterpiece of the Cluny museum, is about to begin, from October 30 to January 16, and because everything is not yet tied up with the foundation Niki de Saint Phalle, the museum prefers to remain discreet about this event.
At the town hall, Pierre Esplugas, deputy mayor in charge of museums, confirms the preparation for this event, the purpose of which is also to promote the attractiveness of the Pink City.
Colorful “Nanas”
In 2017, the Abattoirs had already hosted works by Niki de Saint Phalle on the occasion of the exhibition dedicated to New Realists during the 40th anniversary of the Georges-Pompidou center. The people of Toulouse undoubtedly remember the compressions of Caesar then unveiled, or the large animated sculpture on the ground floor of Jean Tinguely, the second husband of Niki de Saint Phalle. From the Franco-American artist, he had seen collages of everyday objects on paintings hanging on the wall.
Like her works, Niki de Saint Phalle’s unique journey does not fail to attract attention. Self-taught, it was, in 1953, during what was then called a nervous breakdown and while she was interned at the psychiatric hospital in Nice that the one who had first been a model began to paint and create. In a book, she will later reveal that she was raped by her father at the age of 11.
Over the course of her career, Niki de Saint Phalle, who in the 1960s was made famous for her rifle shots at colored pockets hung on canvases, created iconic works well known to all. For example, monumental works have seen the light of day, notably the “Nanas” made of papier-mâché and polyester. Or, in Beaubourg, at the foot of the Georges-Pompidou center building, in the heart of Paris, the Stravinsky Fountain (1983) produced with Jean Tinguely.