News & Announcements

“Niki in the Garden” opens this Sunday at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. Journalist Kristen Hare visited a preview of the exhibition, along with Kim Treff and her three-year-old daughter Greta:

Since 2001, the garden has brought in outside art, including Chapungu, stone sculptures from Zimbabwe, and most notably the glass creations of Dale Chihuly. But nothing has invited participation the way Niki has.

On Sunday, Kim Treff of St. Louis watched as her daughter, Greta, 3, climbed around one of two giant, mosaiced lions.

Treff loved the colors, the size and how her daughter could explore it, she said, but it’s not something you expect to see here.

Because of that, Lynn Kerkemeyer, special exhibitions manager for the garden, wasn’t sure what people would think of Niki’s pieces, all sculptures made of fiberglass and mosaic or painted polyester. They explode, she said, with color, light and brightness.

For all their beauty, Kerkemeyer thought, “they are very different from our formal garden.”

Already, though, “we’re just seeing people of all ages absolutely loving it,” said Karen Hagenow, public relations coordinator with the garden.

“It’s very accessible,” she said. “Which is what’s exciting about it.”

Photo by Kristen Hare

Today in the St. Louis Beacon, journalist Kristen Hare tags along with five-year-old Cavi Wilson and his parents for a preview of the “Niki in the Garden” exhibition at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The garden is already one of Cavi’s favorite places — but as Hare makes clear, “This is different.”

Past stretches of green grass at the Missouri Botanical Garden, around open tulips and emerging tree buds sits a giant skull. Flashes of greens and yellows, oranges and reds pop out from glaring eye sockets. Nearly every inch sparkles under the Sunday sun. …

Inside the skull, called “La Cabeza,” Cavi’s family listen to their voices echo.

“Hey, this skull is pretty dangerous,” Cavi decides, fixing his body in front of slick, nubby teeth where he can see a strip of grass, knees and bellies. Cavi pushes his skinny arms through and growls at people passing.

Most of them stop, eyes big, then step up and touch and duck inside.

“I like this,” Mr. Wilson, who works in advertising, says to his wife, a stay-at-home mom. Walking through the formal garden and seeing a six-ton, mosaic-tile, fiberglass skull was a shock, he thought. “This is cool.”

“Niki in the Garden” opens this coming Sunday and runs through Halloween.

Photo by Kristen Hare

While La Coupole in Paris is showing photos of Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden in Tuscany, there’s no reason for kids to feel left out. “Les boîtes à secrets de Niki” has its opening Wednesday 16 April at the Musée en Herbe, the beloved children’s museum in the Jardin d’Acclimatation of the Bois de Boulogne.

The exhibition, presented with the generous support of the Mayor’s Office of the City of Paris, will be on display through 2 January 2009. The Musée en Herbe is located in the 16th Arrondissement of Paris (Métro Les Sablons) and is open from 10 am until 6 pm, seven days a week. For information or reservations, you can call them at 01 40 67 00 37.
 

A stunning exhibition of photos of the Tarot Garden, the extraordinary sculpture garden created by Niki de Saint Phalle in Tuscany between 1978 and 2002, opens tomorrow at La Coupole in Paris.

“Niki de Saint Phalle: Le Jardin des Tarots” features 37 large-format photographs by Giulio Pietromarchi and Laurent Condominas. The show will be on display at the Parisian landmark from 16 April to 15 August 2008. If you’re in Paris, you’ll definitely want to check it out.
 

The delivery of Niki de Saint Phalle’s six-ton sculpture La Cabeza kicked off the installation of “Niki in the Garden” at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. The Belleville News-Democrat caught up with Juan Arcuelo, who brought the huge sculpture from Chicago on a flatbed truck:

There was a six-ton skull rolling down the interstate Friday morning from Troy to St. Louis. The Missouri Botanical Garden is getting ready for an outdoor exhibition of work by artist Niki de Saint Phalle. One of her pieces, La Cabeza, is a six-ton mosaic skull that was hauled to the gardens Friday on a flatbed semi. It drew a few looks as it traveled from the Chicago area on the back the truck driven by Juan Arcuelo, of Elgin.

He stopped in Troy on Thursday night and had to avoid downtown St. Louis and rush hour with the oversized load. He traveled from Troy to Interstate 255 and then across the Jefferson Barracks Bridge near Columbia before looping back up to the gardens.

The exhibit runs from April 27 until Halloween.

(Photo: Steve Nagy / BND)