With a major public installation of works by Niki de Saint Phalle about to begin on New York’s Park Avenue, NCAF Trustee Bloum Cardenas was interviewed by Good Day New York this morning live from the heart of Manhattan. “I’m very proud to see sculptures by Niki here,” Bloum said. “She grew up in this town, and thanks to Nohra Haime, she’s back in this town. It’s wonderful. We’re very proud.” Standing in front of The Three Graces, she added, “Niki did a lot of sculptures about women — she was an early feminist. But she was also very playful, and loved to have sculptures be used by children and not intimidate children, so they could realize that art is accessible to everyone.”
The nine monumental sculptures will be on display on Park Avenue between 52nd and 60th Streets in New York City from 12 July to 15 November 2012. The show will kick off with an event at Nohra Haime Gallery (730 Fifth Avenue) on Thursday 12 July from 6:00-8:00 pm. A variety of programs ranging from tours to lectures also are being planned in conjunction with the exhibition. Learn more.
On Saturday 2 June, “EXPLOSION! Painting as Action” opened at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The museum describes this breathtaking exhibition thus:
“Explosion explores the rich and complex cross fertilizations and borderlands of painting, performance and conceptual art. It traces this expanded idea of painting as action from late 1940s until today. The exhibition will include works in different media by some 45 artists from many parts of the world — such as the important Japanese Gutai group, including Shozo Shimamoto, Sadamasa Motonaga, Saburo Murakami and Kazuo Shiraga, along with such artists as Allan Kaprow, Jackson Pollock, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yves Klein, Ana Mendieta, Alison Knowles, Rivane Neuenschwander, Yoko Ono and Lawrence Weiner.
“After the Second World War, a number of painters in different parts of the world began to attack painting’s fundamental assumptions in ways that were at once both aggressive and playful. Many artists attached as much importance to the creative act itself as they did to the painting that resulted from it. On this borderland between painting and performance, chance or the spectator were often recruited as co-creators of the work. This experimental, conceptual attitude to painting and art subsequently inspired a lot of other artists. In recent years, interest in performance art has increased, and with it interest in its roots.”
“EXPLOSION! Painting as Action” will be on display from 2 June to 9 September 2012 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The museum is open to the public Tuesday from 10h-20h and Wednesday-Sunday from 10h-18h and is closed Monday. Admission is 100/80 SEK for adults and free for those 18 and under.
Today marks the tenth anniversary of Niki de Saint Phalle’s death. Today we celebrate her life, her work, and the joie de vivre she brought to everything she did. We recall her spirit, her courage, her generosity. We are grateful to have shared this world with her. Niki, we miss you.
QUEBEC, 30 APRIL 2012 — La Manif d’art 6 donne le coup d’envoi de la biennale de Québec. Ayant pour thème Machines – Les formes du mouvement, l’événement est sous le commissariat de Nicole Gingras. Du 2 au 5 mai se tiendront l’Avant-première ainsi que les vernissages de la sélection officielle. Le public est chaleureusement invité à participer à ce grand dévoilement dans 14 lieux de Québec et Lévis.
L’Avant-première de la Manif d’art 6, l’événement VIP culturel de l’été, a lieu le mercredi 2 mai de 17 h à 20 h 30 à l’Espace 400e Bell. Au coût de 50 $, profitez en primeur du dévoilement du lieu central de la biennale. Des visites guidées en petits groupes seront offertes pour découvrir les expositions avant l’ouverture officielle. Lors de la soirée, un vin d’honneur et des bouchées gourmandes seront également servis.
Le jeudi 3 mai, le grand public est invité au vernissage de l’exposition de Diane Landry au Musée de l’Amérique française. En parcourant Correspondances, le visiteur sera entraîné dans un espace habité par différentes machines et inventions mises en relation avec des sculptures et des installations de Diane Landry, réalisées entre 1996 et 2012.
Par la suite, à 20 h 30, les visiteurs sont conviés au vernissage de l’exposition centrale à l’Espace 400e Bell. Cette exposition d’envergure regroupe les œuvres de 16 artistes, soit Yann Farley, Mounir Fatmi, Louise Faure et Anne Julien, Arthur Ganson, Rube Goldberg, Brion Gysin et Ian Sommerville, Joseph Herscher, Marla Hlady, Manon Labrecque, Diane Obomsawin, Stansfield/Hooykaas, Martin Tétreault et Karel Zeman. L’artiste Martin Tétreault offrira une performance à 21 h et à 22 h et le party Manif d’art 6 débutera à 23 h 30.
Le vendredi 4 mai, le Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) lance l’exposition de François Mathieu. Avec De l’air et du plomb, nouvelle installation sculpturale présentée dans la rotonde du MNBAQ, François Mathieu poursuit sa quête de l’envol et propose une machine faite pour voyager. À 18 h, une conférence de l’artiste américain Mark Pauline sera donnée dans l’auditorium du MNBAQ. Veuillez réserver votre place à info@premiereovation.com.
À 21 h suivra le vernissage de l’exposition de Jacques Samson au Grand Théâtre de Québec. Créée spécifiquement pour ce lieu, Excroissances, une installation cinétique en deux parties, sera visible de l’extérieur du bâtiment par la rue Turnbull. Jacques Samson expose également à la galerie du Grand Théâtre de Québec une série d’esquisses préparatoires à l’installation Excroissances.
Le samedi 5 mai, dernière journée de vernissages, les visiteurs sont conviés à découvrir les expositions suivantes : à 13 h, Regart présente Adaptative Actions d’Erika Lincoln; à 15 h, la chambre blanche présente GAMMAvert – a X-SEA-SCAPES de Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag; à 16 h, la Galerie des arts visuels présente Hypoxia de Jean-Pierre Gauthier; à 17 h, MATERIA présente Bestiaire d’Ingrid Bachmann; à 18 h, Le Lieu présente Rotation sous différents angles de Kanta Horio. À 19 h, cinq organismes de la Coopérative Méduse lancent également leurs expositions respectives : Diane Morin chez Avatar; Marla Hlady et Jean Tinguely chez Engramme; Minibloc et Mounir Fatmi à L’Œil de Poisson; Jean-François Dugas, Jérôme Minière et Marie-Pierre Normand à La Bande Vidéo et Manon Labrecque à VU PHOTO.
Laissez-passer
Le laissez-passer est obligatoire pour participer aux activités de la biennale et pour visiter les lieux d’exposition faisant partie de la sélection officielle. Il est composé d’un macaron et du programme officiel. De format poche, cet outil contient tous les renseignements sur les lieux d’expositions, sur les artistes et sur les activités présentées.
Coût
Général : 12 $
Étudiant (carte étudiante obligatoire) : 10 $
Moins de 12 ans (accompagné d’un adulte) : gratuit
Forfait pour deux : 18 $ (2 macarons et un programme)
Le laissez-passer sera en vente dans tous les lieux d’exposition de la sélection officielle ainsi qu’à la bibliothèque Gabrielle-Roy dès le 3 mai.
Le laissez-passer sera en vente dès le 3 mai dans tous les lieux d’exposition de la sélection officielle ainsi qu’à la bibliothèque Gabrielle-Roy, à la Galerie Tzara, au Musée huron-wendat, au Best Western de Québec et à la librairie Formats du RCAAQ à Montréal. La programmation complète se trouve sur l’application mobile disponible pour téléphones iPhone et Android ainsi que sur le site web http://www.manifdart.org/manif6/.
Du 3 mai au 3 juin, les visiteurs seront invités à suivre le parcours artistique et à participer aux nombreuses activités qui évoluent autour du thème Machines – Les formes du mouvement. En ajoutant les activités satellites à la sélection officielle, la biennale de Québec rassemble cette année plus de 80 artistes répartis dans près de 30 lieux de Québec, Lévis et Wendake.
Source : Patrick Fournier, coordonnateur aux communications, Manif d’art, 418 524-1917, communication@manifdart.org
If you’d like to know more about Le Cyclop, the massive sculpture built by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle in Milly-la-Forêt, France, here’s your chance. Completed over the course of three decades with the help of fellow artists Arman, César, Marcel Duchamp, Larry Rivers, and JR Soto, the enormous structure is now the subject of a cycle of conferences exploring the images that inspired its construction and the artists who realized it.
The series, entitled “Le Cyclop, un aller retour vers le futur…,” is being held in the Espace Culturel Paul Bédu at 8 bis rue Farnault, 91490 Milly-la-Forêt on 12 April, 3 May, and 31 May 2012 from 6:30 to 8:00pm. The sessions are being led by art historian Caroline Soyez-Petithomme, co-director of the art space La Salle de Bain in Lyon.
For more information about the conference series or the work itself, you can also visit the Le Cyclopweb site.
How do Taiwanese kids play with “shooting art”? Take a look! From the Quanta Foundation’s Niki Traveling Exhibition 2008-2011, here’s a glimpse of what happens when nine Taiwanese cities, 69 schools, and more than 90,000 people meet Niki de Saint Phalle.
“With unique imagination and creativity, [Saint Phalle] tirelessly delved into eternal and existential subjects such as power and powerlessness, destructive social patterns, gender, love and sexuality. Her prolific artistic output covers a range spanning from artist books and films to monumental sculpture projects. In both her art and her personal life, she reminds us of the inner force that can conquer fear and help us step out into life as ourselves.
“The exhibition with Niki de Saint Phalle launches a new series of presentations focusing on seminal artists that are especially relevant to the Moderna Museet collection. It is both pleasing and logical to start the series by featuring Niki de Saint Phalle, since her sculpture group Paradise and her internationally acclaimed exhibition SHE [Hon] have been highly important to the history of Moderna Museet, both in Sweden and internationally.”
“The Girl, the Monster and the Goddess” will open 12 May and run through 9 September 2012. On the opening day of the exhibition, 12 May at 3 pm, curator Joa Ljungberg will give a guided tour of the exhibition (in Swedish). Read more.
In 1963, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique drew attention to the stifling state of American womanhood, and Roy Lichtenstein painted what might be considered a visual analogue: “Drowning Girl,” who’d rather be engulfed by tidal waves than call Brad for help. It was also the year Andy Warhol began his grungy, frightening Race Riot silkscreens, as civil rights protests grew. And James Rosenquist was working his way up to “F-111”, his big, bold anti-war statement of 1965, as Vietnam came into public focus. And a good many other Pop Artists around the globe were also picturing social concerns and changes on the horizon.
Last month, the College Art Association held its 100th annual conference in Los Angeles, with “Pop and Politics” among the program highlights. Each of the eight speakers revisited that art movement of a half-century ago, and provided unique new perspectives on the theme.
The sessions were organized by Allison Unruh and Kalliopi Minioudaki, both Ph.Ds and independent art historians. Here’s the first half of my two-part interview with them. And here’s a link to my first CAA100 column, which includes my talk with Anthony E. Grudin, “Pop and Politics” presenter and Warhol specialist.
Kalliopi Minioudaki and Allison Unruh in front of an Andy Warhol piece at the L.A. County Museum of Art.
Michael Dooley: What inspired you to put together “Pop and Politics”?
Allison Unruh: Kalliopi and I have been friends for years, and we’ve been looking for opportunities to collaborate. Chairing a panel at CAA was a perfect chance for us to promote discussion in a way that was relevant to both our interest in broadening the critical discourse of Pop Art, and to support a variety of scholars’ work that we think is really important.
Kalliopi Minioudaki: As we put it in our abstract, our main goal was to “promote discussion about previously overlooked intersections of Pop and politics in its varied international contexts, and to forge new ways of thinking about the political in the context of Pop.” There have been, of course, productive denouncements of Pop’s superficiality in light of significant previous investigations of some of Pop’s meaningful social and political dimensions, and there seems to be a recent consensus about the criticality of Pop’s often ambiguous — simultaneously celebratory and critical — embrace of pop culture. But we agreed that there remains a need to further investigate the various political aspects of Pop in greater depth.
AU: We’ve collaborated on another recent project; when I had the chance to edit a book of collected essays on Robert Indiana’s work I immediately thought of Kalliopi’s previous exploration of the political significance of the work of a variety of women Pop artists. And so I invited her to investigate those kinds of issues in Indiana’s work, which she did in a really incisive and original way.
KM: In a way, the topic of our panel grew naturally out of each of our scholarly works on mainstream and marginal Pop, which seemed to converge in our interest in its political dimensions. For instance, I have analyzed the diversity of proto-feminist politics in the realm of Pop in light of several women Pop artists whose work I studied for my doctoral dissertation, what I described as “Pop proto-feminisms” in the catalogue of Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958-1968. And so I was, needless to say, particularly curious for new scholarship on the gender and sexual politics of Pop.
What aspects of the politics of Pop have been previously overlooked or neglected, and why?
AU: First, I would say that there isn’t a single kind of political dimension to Pop — rather, there’s a range of levels and types of engagement with the political that is really interesting in its variety. In turning to the immediacy of popular culture and contemporary experience, artists who worked within the realm of Pop Art found themselves invariably grappling with the political, whether in explicit or implicit ways.
One of the main problems with the politics of Pop has been the way it walks a fine line between celebration or complicity versus a critical stance toward mass culture. In my view, the work of an artist such as Robert Indiana — often called the most “American” of Pop artists — can in fact be both celebratory and critical of American culture.
KM: Moreover, to answer “why” Pop’s political aspects have been overlooked, it’s important to clarify which or whose Pop Art we are talking about, and which stage of its critical construction we are taking into consideration.
On the one hand, for instance, there are specific Pop art movements that have been always and unavoidably acknowledged as quite dissident, such as Equipo Crónica, which was critical of Franco’s regime. But isn’t this one of the reasons why it’s been marginalized from the discourse of Pop as something other than Pop?
If, on the other hand, we focus on the history of the critical construction of American Pop, then the shifts in its discourse reveal a variety of political aspects whose neglect and rediscovery can be more easily identified and perhaps historically and discursively explained.
What about the feminist politics of Pop?
KM: The neglect of the feminist politics of Pop is a different story, of course. It’s a symptom of the writing-out of women artists from Pop’s history, ensuing from the sexism of the 1960s art world and the masculinist principles of art history. But it’s also a surprising effect of the rise of feminist thinking in the arts.
A feminist aversion to Pop Art was justifiably developed by the feminist critique of the misogyny of Pop Art, pop culture and their pornographic iconography’s servicing of patriarchic culture in the 1970s. But feminist thinking on Pop Art and culture left no viable subversive position for women artists vis-à-vis popular culture other than that of abstinence or critique, which made feminist Pop an oxymoron.
If I may, I’d like to speak about my experience of the reception of Seductive Subversion, even of the paper I delivered at CAA. What’s perhaps most difficult still to accept, given the recent acknowledgment of feminist interventions in Pop, is the — often sexual — politics of affirmative, pleasurable dialogues with pop culture derived from what I see as a strategic use of pop culture, from an active rather than passive fan’s position, for instance.
In the case of feminist Pop politics, this is particularly resonant with women artists such as Axell and Pauline Boty. As desiring consumers or fans, they affectively used the vocabulary of popular culture — female stars, the pin-up, consumer objects such as cars, etc. — to speak for issues that were radical for women in the early 1960s, issues such as female sexuality, defending women’s right to erotic desire and pleasure, or even critiquing the sexism of visual culture without, however, relinquishing the pleasures of pop culture’s consumption or pleasure itself.
In part three, Allison and Kalliopi discuss what Pop has to do with today’s politics.
Here is Elsewhere gallery in West Hollywood is presenting “From Then to Now,” the first US show of photographer Laurent Condominas, an artist who is both part of Niki de Saint Phalle’s family and the creator of many of the best known photos of Niki and her work. His oeuvre is described thus by La Lettre de la Photographie:
“His photos focus notably on his family and friends, a ‘Band of Outsiders’ which would become part of the 1970s artistic avant-garde. A ‘poetry of everyday life’ appears in this work, which takes small details of banal situations and elevates them into political and sometimes philosophical comments. Condominas’ use of light and color, his attention to detail, and his sense of the absurd also draw a parallel with the California avant-garde of the same time. Hence his work captures the freshness and innocence which, at the time, symbolized youth culture. In a more nostalgic light, they ultimately reveal the end of an era, the turning point when consumerism and normality took over.”
Condominas figured in the 1960s French avant-garde scene, having been part of the Zanzibar Films group known as the “Dandies of May ’68,” as well as appearing in films from Andy Warhol’s Factory group. His work has been published in Elle, Vogue, The Los Angeles Times, Art in America, and TATE and has been shown internationally at Tokyo’s Space Nikki, Musée de Las Palmas, and many other museums.
“From Then to Now” is at HiE in the Pacific Design Center at 8687 Melrose Avenue, Suite B231 (Blue Building, Second Floor) in West Hollywood. For more information, visit the HiE web site or call +1.310.904.8966.
Pictured above: Laurent Condominas, “Quatre générations,” 1973 (Niki de Saint Phalle, center, with her mother Jeanne Jacqueline, her daughter Laura, and her grand-daughter Bloum).
Volkshochschule und Friedehorst arbeiten zusammen: Skulpturen-Workshop für Behinderte und Nichtbehinderte
“Was können die Behinderten vergleichbar zu den Nicht-Behinderten leisten? Wo gibt es Schnittstellen?” Diese Fragen leiteten Ute Pahlow von der Volkshochschule in Bremen-Nord, als sie einem Angebot der Stiftung “Friedehorst” zustimmte. Es ging dabei darum, gemeinsam Kurse für behinderte und nichtbehinderte Menschen zu organisieren.
Bremen-Nord. Den Anstoß für eine solche Zusammenarbeit gab die Leiterin im Fachbereich Pädagogik in Friedehorst, Barbara Lohse-Meyer. Sie schlug einen Nana-Skulpturen-Workshop vor. Diese Anregung nahm Ute Pahlow gerne auf. In einem solchen Workshop gehe es weniger um zielorientiertes Lernen als vielmehr um freies künstlerisches Schaffen, sagte sie.
Die rundlichen und farbenfrohen Nanas der französisch-schweizerischen Künstlerin Niki des Saint Phalle üben einen optischen und haptischen Reiz aus. Sie können behinderte wie nichtbehinderte Menschen zu einer plastischen und schöpferischen Auseinandersetzung anregen. Indem beide Lerngruppen an der gleichen Aufgabenstellung arbeiteten, würde eine UN-Konvention ganz natürlich umgesetzt, wonach Behinderte am normalen gesellschaftlichen Leben beteiligt werden sollten, meinte Ute Pahlow. Hier finde ein “Austausch in Richtung Normalität” statt.
Teilnehmer zeigen Ausdauer
Der Kursus im Freizeittreff Friedehorst erstreckte sich über vier Termine. An jedem Sonnabend kamen in der Zeit zwischen 11 und 17 Uhr sechs behinderte und zwei nichtbehinderte Menschen zusammen, fünf Frauen und drei Männer. Die Leitung des Workshops übernahm Ute Osterloh, eine erfahrene Erzieherin, die sich schon seit 14 Jahren im Freizeitbereich engagiert.
Zu Beginn erzählte Ute Osterloh den Teilnehmern von der Bildhauerin Niki des Saint Phalle und ihren üppigen, quietschbunt bemalten Frauengestalten, die beispielsweise am Strawinski-Brunnen in Paris nahe dem Centre Pompidou oder an der Skulpturenmeile am Leibniz-Ufer in Hannover aufgestellt sind. Sie zeigte den Teilnehmern Fotos und ermunterte sie, selbst solche raumgreifenden Figuren zu zeichnen, um sie anschließend nach eigenen Vorstellungen farbig auszumalen.
Diese Zeichnungen zeigten vielgestaltige Ausformungen von Nana-Figuren. Sie dienten anschließend jedem Kursteilnehmer als Vorlage für die mannsgroße Figur, die er selbst erstellen sollte. Zunächst bastelte jeder ein Holzgestell, um ausgestreckte Arme oder angehobene Beine darzustellen. “Da leisteten die Teilnehmer richtiggehend Handarbeit”, erzählte Ute Osterloh. “Es wurde gesägt, geschraubt und gebohrt.”
Standfestigkeit erhielt das Lattengerüst durch einen Betonsockel, den die Teilnehmer in Farbeimern gegossen hatten. Um das Grundgerüst formten die Künstler dann Kaninchendraht, der schon die Proportionen sichtbar werden ließ. “Alles schön rund!” Die Drahtform wurde dann mit Zeitungspapier und “viel, viel Kleister” bedeckt und mit weißer Abtönfarbe angestrichen. Zum Schluss erhielt jede der acht Figuren ein Farbkostüm aus Acrylfarben, blau, grün, rot und gelb.
Die Kursleiterin zeigte sich erstaunt, dass besonders die behinderten Teilnehmer so lange durchgehalten haben. “Die Ausdauer, die sie aufgebracht haben, ist irre!” Sich über sechs Stunden zu konzentrieren, sei für diese Menschen eine große Energieleistung, stellte sie bewundernd fest. Natürlich wurden zwischendurch auch Pausen eingelegt, es gab Pizza und Tee. Aber wie sich jeder Besucher überzeugen konnte, waren die Künstler mit viel Freude bei der Sache. Sie jauchzten und lachten, erzählten und pfiffen sogar bei der Arbeit. Antonio und Jessica hockten und lagen mit dem Farbpinsel in der Hand auf dem Boden. Ayse bemalte ihre Nana vom Rollstuhl aus.
Zum Abschluss erhielten all die rundlichen Damen aus Holz, Draht und Pappmaché im farbenfrohen Gewand einen Anstrich aus Kunstharz, damit sie auch draußen aufgestellt werden können. Arnd (23) schenkt seine Figur dem “Papa” und Uschi (66) übergibt ihre Nana dem Haus 1 im Friedehorst. Wenn in jüngster Vergangenheit so viel über “Inklusion” diskutiert wurde, hier wurde sie praktisch verwirklicht.
