Her life, her legacy and
her endless experimentations
From the 2 September 2022 until the 8 January 2023, the Kunsthaus in Zürich is presenting a big retrospective of the oeuvre of Niki de Saint Phalle and how she shapes her art, from early assemblages, action art and graphic works, the Nanas, the Tarot Garden and large sculptures.
The artist, which was born on the 29th of October 1930 as Catherine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint-Phalle is the second child of the five. But, as the family grow and the crack of 1929 it them, the family didn't have any resource. She will be sent to her grandparent before returning to her family in Greenwich, Connecticut.
While their parent later move to New York, in an apartment on 88 East Street, Niki will leave most of her childhood in New York, from her religious school to her high-school in the Maryland. At the age of 18-19, she will move back to New York and pursue a career of a model for fashion magazine such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Life.
The start of something new
Since the start of her life as a model, Niki was married to Harry Mathews in New York on 6 June 1949. The couple had their first children, Laure and decide to move to Cambridge in the Massachusetts. At that exact moment, she starts her first painting and drawing.
After a few years, she comes back to Paris and during a year, she will be in a hospital due to a depression... Afterward her style and life will be flourishing, Niki will visit Barcelona and fell inspired by the parc Güell and the Sagrada Família and the common knowledge of being together in a religious setting.
She even exhibited her first series in 1956, in the Swiss town of Saint-Gall. The same year, she will see works of Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Henri Rousseau while meeting for the first time with Jean Tinguely and his wife, Eva Aeppli.
4 years later, a new beginning start with the separation between her and her husband and her move to the Impasse Ronsin, next to the atelier of Jean Tinguely. This will lead to one of his most important meeting in her life, the meeting with the director and curator of the Moderna Museet: Pontus Hulten.
At the heart of the Impasse Ronsin, Nikki will destroy and make any assemblage, between 1961 and 1963. At the same moment, the group of the Nouveaux réalistes will be created with Arman, César, Christo, Yves Klein, etc.
Her many shows in Paris will be priceless until her big first exhibition International, by participating to the exhibition "The Art of Assemblage" at the MoMA, the SFMoMA and the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Art in 1961. This will lead to a close trip wit Jean Tinguely in America, passing by Los Angeles, Mexico. They will become close to artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Max Ernst, Victor Brauner and René Magritte.
In 1962, Virgina Dwan an American art collector, patron, philanthropist, visionary and founder of the Dwan Light Sanctuary in Montezuma, New Mexico, will organise a short action in Los Angeles to create the work King-Kong. This will lead to the purchase of the piece by the Moderna Museet of Stockholm.
Due to her intensive work process and the use of toxic glue for polyester, she will be sick and having problem breathing since 1968... But it will not stop her life with Jean Tinguely, which just married Niki on the 13 July 1971.
At the end of her career, she mainly focuses on the making of film and big scale installation for museums and private buyer. But one of the most important moments of her life might be her now retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 1980, which will later travel to Germany and Europe. Niki will die a few decades later, on 21 May 2022.
All of this story and more can be discovered in the show, which unfold chronologically and thematically. Wait and see, it's your turn to dive into her world in Zürich...
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Kunsthaus Zürich
Date: 2.9.2022 – 8.1.2023
Curators: Christoph Becker
Ticket: Available on the website of the Kunsthaus Zürich OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Kunsthaus Zürich
Kunsthaus Zürich
Heimplatz
CH-8001 Zürich
Phone: +41 44 253 84 84
Mail: info@kunsthaus.ch