Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle

From guns to genitalia, Niki de Saint Phalle challenged the boundaries of sculpture beginning with her shooting performances in 1960s Paris alongside the Nouveaux Réalistes. This introduction explores Saint Phalle’s 40-year career of boldly inventive forms, from her first assemblages to her curvaceous Nanas and the immersive Tarot Garden.

This book provides an introduction to Saint Phalle’s work, highlighting some of her most important contributions to 20th century art. From birthing mothers to harbingers of death, she created sculptures that celebrated and exposed the female form in works such as Pink Birth (1964) and Hon En Kathedral (1966). She also used real-life figures as inspiration: her early Nana sculptures are named after the artist’s women friends and family members. She later extended her practice to films such as Daddy (1973), artist’s books including AIDS: You Can’t Catch it Holding Hands (1987), and the Tarot Garden, a monumental sculpture park with figures modeled on the 22 named cards of the Major Arcana figures in the Tarot deck, the karmic cards of destiny.

Hardcover, 21 x 26 cm, 0.63 kg, 96 pages

ISBN 978-3-7544-0005-0

Edition: English