Les Abattoirs celebrate the taste for freedom of committed artist Niki de Saint Phalle
Her Nanas, round, feminine and colorful are recognizable among all. But the works of Niki de Saint Phalle go well beyond. Until March 5, the Slaughterhouse Museum de Toulouse highlights two decades of creations by the Franco-American artist, between 1980 and 2000, including the adventure of the Tarot Garden in Italy, and his commitment against discrimination.
Nearly 200 works are visible during the exhibition free art which opens to visitors on a huge curtain made up of dozens of balloons evoking one of its famous Nanas. Loch Ness monster all in mirrors, mosaic totems, colorful bestiary of the Serpent Woman, tubular sculptures of Skinnies, jewelry, furniture celebrate a period “very poorly known and sometimes very poorly understood” where the artist “is very free “, says Annabelle Ténèze, director of the modern art museum of the Pink City.
A testament to her freedom of expression, her feminism
Made famous in the sixty years by her Nanas or her Shootings, paintings-performances with a rifle, Niki de Saint Phalle became during the last ten years 1980-1990 site manager to realize her masterpiece: the Garden of Tarots, in the Tuscan countryside an hour north of Rome. There, she built 22 gigantic sculptures like so many mysteries.
This exhibition is a testimony to her freedom of expression, her feminism, her attachment to nature and her revolt against all forms of injustice. She spoke “to future generations” and “this focus on the 1980s-1990s is very important” because today’s young people understood “better the different things that Niki addressed” than her contemporaries, explained Bloum Cardenas, her little one. -daughter, director of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation.