NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE

On loan from the Niki de Saint Phalle foundation are two works that informed or are versions of large-scale public projects. ‘Fontaine aux quatre Nanas (1988-1990)’ is a table-top piece of four women joyfully playing in a circular water feature—this piece was produced large-scale as a functioning fountain, water flowing from the breasts and hands of the four figures. 

‘Sphinx (1990)’, might be understood as an interpretation of The Empress from the Tarot Garden. The figure is regal, her crown atop her large feminine body that still retains the haunches of a lion.  These works are examples of Niki de Saint Phalle life-long engagement with the power of the female form as well as her long trajectory of making public fountains and using water in her works. Her magical creatures maintain ancient archetypes like the sphinx, the snake, the Venus—her forms are primordial and yet she imagined them for new experiential audience. Her relationship with the esoteric, tarot and other spiritual practices was not separate from her art-making practice which seems to be a clear case-study for the artists role as conduit for the divine, the creation of objects as sites for spiritual manifestation.

Niki de Saint Phalle produced fantastical and figurative houses, parks, and playgrounds. These structures were charged spaces of imagination from which she envisioned experimental societies emerging, places “where you could have a new kind of life, to just be free.” Central to this vision was ‘Tarot Garden’, a massive sculptural installation outside of Rome, open to the public since 1998. The intricate detailing and organic shapes of the garden’s structures, based on the 22 Major Arcana of the tarot deck, underscore Saint Phalle’s belief that art can alter perception and shift reality. Saint Phalle also engaged with the politics of social space in her work. Addressing subjects that ranged from women’s rights to climate change and HIV/AIDS awareness, she was often at the vanguard in addressing pressing issues of her time.