Kunsthaus Zürich honors Niki de Saint Phalle with a retrospective
A retrospective of the artist Niki de Saint Phalle can be admired at the Kunsthaus Zurich until January 8th.
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the essentials in brief
- The Kunsthaus Zürich is trying to get closer to Niki de Saint Phalle in a retrospective.
- The exhibition opens its doors from today until January 8, 2023.
- In this country she is particularly known for her “Nana” in the main station in Zurich.
The title of the retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zurich is simple – “Niki de Saint Phalle”.
Nothing more is needed. Because almost everyone associates something with this name. It belongs to one of the most important artists of the 20th century.
In the Confederation, millions of travelers in particular are familiar with it: An oversized sculpture of “Niki de Saint Phalle” hangs in the main hall of Zurich’s main train station. The guardian angel “L’ange de protecteur” has been protecting the main hall of the station since 1997.
Saint Phalle’s work was just as multifaceted as the artist herself. This is exactly what the Kunsthaus Zürich wants to show with the retrospective. Because the artist has a lot more to offer than the carefree cheerfulness of her «Nanas».
The exhibition in the Kunsthaus Zürich presents around 100 different works of art by Saint Phalle. These should draw a bow from the early assemblages to their work in the theater. In a statement, the Kunsthaus Exactly describes her work as “eccentric, emotional, dark and brutal, humorous, profound and always challenging”.
Rapid rise
Niki de Saint Phalle became an overnight celebrity in 1966. In the Moderna Museet in Stockholm she created “the greatest whore in the world”.
She named the work of art so with motherly love. It weighs six tons, is 27 meters long and has a gaping hole between its thighs. Through this, more than 100,000 people broke into it. The massive sculpture became the most famous of the many “Nanas”.
But even before that, she made a name for herself with a spectacular action. In 1961, at a happening in Paris, you and gallery-goers shot plaster reliefs with bags of paint embedded in them. These “shooting pictures” opened their important museums.
At that time she belonged to the group of Nouveaux Réalistes, the only woman. They were influenced by artists such as the Spanish master builder Antoni Gaudí, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean Dubuffet and Yves Klein. Of course, so did Jean Tinguely (1925-1991), whom she had known since 1956 and with whom she realized many projects.
Niki de Saint Phalle or Catherine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle was the daughter of an American and a French aristocrat. Born in the case of Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. She spent her youth in New York. During this time they expect to be given the first name Niki.
At the age of 18, the then convent student married the US writer Harry Mathews. The couple separated in 1960. She later married Jean Tinguely, which gave her Swiss citizenship in 1971.
What she connected with him above all was a lifelong artistic collaboration. For example, together they decorated the Stravinsky Fountain in front of the Pompidou Center in Paris with water-spitting machines and brightly colored monsters.
Art as Therapy
For Niki de Saint Phalle, art came after a difficult childhood therapy. This is what the Kunsthaus Zürich writes and it is precisely them on their way as “always innovative, courageous and independent”.
Her art, on the other hand, is described as “aggressive and emotional”. The traumatic experience of her own father’s sexual violence is processed in her work. The burdened and problematic attachment to the mother and her own role model as a woman also flowed into it.
It is not only present in the traditional places of art. You can also find their work in boutiques and stationery shops – or in the train station.
Like no other artist before her, she took the path between art and commerce to her advantage. For example, she managed her life’s work with a perfume she created. She created the bottle decorated with two snakes herself. However, it has not yet been reissued.
The Kunsthaus Zürich puts the “soft tones” in the limelight
The Kunsthaus Zürich will now “focus on the softer tones in the overall artistic work”. In the large exhibition hall, semi-open rooms, lined partly dark blue, partly white, are freely distributed over the surface. The exhibition visitors should move between and around a square, like in a village. Large windows connect the outside with the inside.
In addition to works by the artist, numerous photographs are on display. These feature Niki de Saint Phalle, who also wrote as a model.
Models and photos, for example of her “Tarot Garden”, are also on display at the Kunsthaus Zürich. An imaginative large-scale project with the 22 cards of the game inspired house sculptures. It was born in 1978 in Garavicchio, a hidden place in Tuscany.
“Niki de Saint Phalle” is a cooperation with the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. It was curated by Christoph Becker, who said goodbye to the Kunsthaus with this exhibition.
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