Published on : 10/03/2021 – 10:20Modified : 10/03/2021 – 10:18
–
New York (AFP)
She spent most of her childhood in New York, but Niki de Saint Phalle had never had the right to a retrospective there. An appendix from MoMA pays tribute to her from this Thursday, shedding new light on this Franco-American plastic artist, painter and sculptor, insatiable builder.
The artist, born in France and died in California in 2002, “is not considered to be linked to this city”, explains Ruba Katrib, curator of the exhibition, which will end on September 6 on the PS1 antenna of the MoMA, in Queens. “There is confusion. She is seen as a French artist by name and also because she has mainly made a career in Europe.”
Another source of misunderstanding, Marie-Agnès de Saint Phalle has especially been remembered for her “chicks”, sculptures of women with generous shapes, and their playful dimension. If these sculptures are now a consensus, his work, radical, political, diverse, was often poorly received by part of the public.
“Some love, others hate, or are scared to death. Everyone reacts,” read the header of a New York magazine article devoted to “Fantastic Paradise”, the artist’s first major installation. , in 1967, passed through Montreal, Buffalo, then Central Park.
– A work that “resonates” –
If the exhibition “Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures of Life” evokes all the stages of her career, it focuses more particularly on the artist as a builder, whose increasingly imposing sculptures ended up becoming buildings.
The apotheosis of this frenzy with the scent of gigantism will remain the Tarot Garden, in Tuscany (Italy), the project of his life, which will have required almost 20 years of work.
With some 22 structures inspired by the main cards of the Tarot de Marseille, some habitable and measuring up to 15 meters high, on two hectares, the whole rivals the Park Güell of Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, which largely inspired it. .
However, the artist had no training in architecture or construction techniques. Her foreman was an Italian electrician, as inexperienced as she was.
Niki de Saint Phalle will lead many other monumental projects around the world, notably the “Rêve de l’oiseau” (1968-1971), a set produced on a hill in the Var, which marks the turning point of her work from sculpture to ‘architecture.
Plans, photographs, videos, the New York exhibition reveals the genesis of these crazy projects, and shows “the amount of work, material, innovations and solutions that had to be found to carry them out”, explains Ruba Katrib.
“This part of her work is less well known,” said the curator, “because these sculptures are really associated with sites”, many of which are in remote places.
With these documents, enriched with press articles, derivative products, advertisements, correspondence, writings and extracts from programs, this retrospective seeks to capture a protean artist in constant movement.
The main ambition of the exhibition is to restore to a younger audience, who know her little or not at all, an artist whose urgency and favorite themes remain relevant today, be it feminism. , emancipation, universality or art as a vector of social bond.
Niki de Saint Phalle is also the story of a childhood shattered by violence and incest, which knew “to transform pain and trauma into something joyful and understandable”, according to Ruba Katrib.
In a world marked by the pandemic, which has postponed the exhibition by a year, “it really resonates today”.
© 2021 AFP
–
