.:. art / provocative happiness
Niki de Saint Phalle
October 5, 2024 through February 16, 2025
more pictures .:.
Dancing
Mamas in bright colours (pictured), who are life-size or aptly larger than life, mingle with animated bas-reliefs in white, lively totems and ladies' garments at the height of fashion. The world of de Saint Phalle (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1930-San Diego, 2002) proves to be absolutely
feminine and brilliant. She was provocative to the point of shooting against her own artwork, and against God. Or, as she said, not really the Divine; rather, the clergy.
.:. The exhibition currently at Mudec, the Museum of Cultures in Milan, is a retrospective as much as an adventure. Most of all, it is amusing, refreshing and aptly planned. In fact, it overlaps with another's in Pirelli HangarBicocca, another Milanese cultural institution, devoted to her friend, colleague and lover
Jean Tinguely. The couple cooperated often, frequently in Italy and sometimes here in town.
.:. Niki's most celebrated work in this country is outdoors. The
Giardino dei Tarocchi, or The Tarot Garden, was built in the Tuscan countryside between 1978 and 2002 as a vast sculpture park representing the twenty-two major arcana of the cartomantic tarot. The monumental statues are covered with brightly multicolored ceramics, tiles, mirrors and precious glass. The Mudec exhibition documents this fantastic garden, too, among other wonders.