“Very early on, I decided to become a heroine. Who would I be? george The sand ? Jeanne D’Arc ? Napoleon in a petticoat? […] Whatever I do in the future, I wanted it to be challenging, exciting, grand. » Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002), renowned for her « Nanas » and her « Shoots » created in the 1960s, wrote and spoke about gold. Pain, her place as a woman, the singularity of her works, have punctuated and constituted her career as a woman, as an artist. With the exhibition dedicated to her, “Niki de Saint Phalle. The 1980s and 1990s: art at liberty”, the Les Abattoirs museum presents nearly 200 works (small and monumental, jewellery, perfume, videos, books, clothes, etc.) by the Franco-American woman who struck a chord with news from today’s world, as explained by the curator of the exhibition, Lisa Pesapane: “There are currently three exhibitions in Europe dedicated to Niki de Saint Phalle, including that of Les Abattoirs which is part of this part of discovery even if , now, the artist is really well known. But this work, which can be described as late, is perhaps less well known. Yet we clearly perceive his extreme coherence, his strength and his commitment. Everything was already there in the 1960s and then, during the period covered by the exhibition, she continues to defend, for example, the rights of women which are flouted today in certain countries. »

Pioneer of art for all

This major new and surprising exhibition “speaks more than ever today to the public continues Lisa Pesapane because the work accomplished was very open and committed to others, to the most fragile, children, the sick. And this is how the designer got to know art in everyday life, even selling her “Nanas Balloons” in New York department stores for 5 or 10 dollars: “During this period, Niki de Saint Phalle was perceived as a commercial artist by the art world who was skeptical, enlightens the curator, so she was less highlighted. But today, we can reread those moments understanding that, on the contrary, she was very intelligent because thanks to all these products, these artist’s furniture, she was able to continue all her major projects and go down in the history of the ‘art. This is also the time when she begins the creation of the Tarot Garden in Capalbio in Tuscany, thus continuing her commitment to democratizing access to art. The exhibition immerses the visitor in the development of this enchanting park with unbridled creativity. The vast rooms of the museum lend themselves perfectly to this journey which delivers, as she wished, “the joyful life of objects”, colors, shapes, in complete freedom…