Niki de Saint Phalle: exhibition at the Guggenheim in Bilbao
05/04/2015.
[Bilbao] Spain. 27.02 > 11.06.2015.
metalocus, BRANLY ERNESTO PÉREZ.
metalocus, BRANLY ERNESTO PÉREZ.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is proud to present Niki de Saint Phalle, a complete retrospective of the work of Niki de Saint Phalle (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, 1930 –San Diego, California, 2002), member of the Nouveaux Réalistes and known around the world for works like her powerful, exuberant Nanas , her impressive Shooting Paintings —Tirs— , and emblematic public artworks like the Tarot Garden in Tuscany.
This exhibition, organized by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and La Réunion des Musées Nationaux–Grand Palais, Paris, with the participation of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation, is the first major retrospective of Niki de Saint Phalle's work ever held in Spain and takes a comprehensive and original look at the artist through over 200 works and archive documents, many of which have never been published.
This broad selection faithfully documents the multiple facets—painter, sculptor, printmaker, performer, and experimental filmmaker—of an artist with a singular creative universe and a pioneering worldview, punctuated by screenings that show Saint Phalle talking about her work.
As visitors wander through the more than 2,000 square meters of exhibition space, they will come across the milestones and legends that marked the career of Niki de Saint Phalle, an artist who earned international acclaim and acknowledgment in her lifetime and, like Andy Warhol before her, knew how to attract the media's interest.
The pieces in the show arranged in the chronological order and according to subjects, address recurring themes in Niki de Saint Phalle's artistic trajectory, such as the power of the feminine and open defiance of social conventions. In her works, the artist combines her intense political and social engagement and radicalism with color and the optimism of her world-famous Nanas. The retrospective thus reveals a paradoxical, singular creative universe inspired by Gaudí, Dubuffet, and Pollock.
Curators.- Camille Morineau and Álvaro Rodríguez Fominaya.
Dates.- February 27–June 11, 2015.
Venue.- Avenida Abandoibarra, 2 48009 Bilbao. Spain.
Catherine Marie-Agnes Fal de Saint Phalle, best known as Niki de Saint Phalle (29th of October of 1930 - 21st of May of 2002) She was a famous French sculptor, painter and filmmaker, and Jean Tinguely’s wife, who was also sculptor and painter.
She went to the USA in 1933, where she worked as a model in her adolescence.
In 1962 she participated in the exhibition “The Art of the Assembly” in the Museum of Modern Art of New York. In 1964 she started to create a work series titled “Nanas”, female figures of voluptuous shapes and vivid colors. In the same series, in 1964, the made the biggest woman’s sculpture in the art history, called “Hon”, that means “She” in Swedish. She built the “The Tarot Garden” in 1979, which is a sculpture garden near Florence, Italy.
In 1982, with her husband Jean Tinguely, made the “Stravinsky Fountain” (or “Fontaine des automates”) nearby the Pompidou Centre in Paris.