Shooting with a rifle, sleeping on the bosom of an empress, playing tarot, laughing, building a cathedral in Tuscany... this is what is in the bucket-list of the indomitable Niki de Saint Phalle. Emblematic figure of the woman-artist, she marked the 20th century with her work and personality.
Extremely beautiful and atypical, Niki de Saint Phalle is a woman that one notices. She found a way to exchange her work for clothes from Christian Dior and wandered around Paris dressed in lace, on the arm of her husband Jean Tinguely, who liked to play the proletarian and claimed to belong to a popular milieu. But underneath these light airs lied a deep suffering. It was after her stay in a psychiatric hospital that Niki de Saint Phalle discovered art and learned to use it as a catalyst for negative and painful energies. Creating allowed her to express her revolt, against her abusive father, against society, against inequalities. At the beginning of the 1960s, during an exhibition in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, she shocked and fascinated her guests by inviting them to shoot her works. These shooting performances, destructive but cathartic, made her world famous.
Extremely beautiful and atypical, Niki de Saint Phalle is a woman that one notices. She found a way to exchange her work for clothes from Christian Dior and wandered around Paris dressed in lace, on the arm of her husband Jean Tinguely, who liked to play the proletarian and claimed to belong to a popular milieu. But underneath these light airs lied a deep suffering. It was after her stay in a psychiatric hospital that Niki de Saint Phalle discovered art and learned to use it as a catalyst for negative and painful energies. Creating allowed her to express her revolt, against her abusive father, against society, against inequalities. At the beginning of the 1960s, during an exhibition in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, she shocked and fascinated her guests by inviting them to shoot her works. These shooting performances, destructive but cathartic, made her world famous.
Feminine feminist, rebellious pioneer and only woman of the group of the New Realists, Niki de Saint Phalle is a UFO of the art world saturated with men of the time. However, the courage, determination and political commitment of her strong and universal works, allowed her to leave a mark in History and pave the way for a new generation of artists.
