News & Announcements

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.

Photo: Installation view: Explosion! Painting as Action, Moderna Museet, 2012
© Photo: Åsa Lundén/Moderna Museet.
Works (from left): Jean Tinguely, Méta-Matic no 17, 1961 © Jean Tinguely/BUS 2012; Kazuo Shiraga, Untitled, 1956-2006 © Kazuo Shiraga; Niki de Saint Phalle, Tableau tir, 1961 © Niki de Saint Phalle/BUS 2012.
 

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.
 

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 Cyclop web site.

This summer, Moderna Museet Malmö will be featuring “The Girl, the Monster and the Goddess,” an exhibition of works by 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.

Pictured above: Niki de Saint Phalle, “L’accouchement rose,” 1964. © 2012 Niki Charitable Art Foundation.
 

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).
 

The German-language Koeln-Journal writes about the exhibition “Niki de Saint Phalle: Spiel Mit Mir,” at the Max Ernst Museum in Bruehl, Germany. The article begins:

“Ihre Kunst wirkt herrlich kindlich und harmonisch. Man kann sagen: Niki de Saint Phalle brachte ihre Träume aufs Papier. Aber auch wenn die bunten Werke Fröhlichkeit ausstrahlen, ihre künstlerische Karriere begann keinesfalls unbeschwert…”

In English:

“Her art is wonderfully childlike and harmonious. You could say that Niki de Saint Phalle brought her dreams to paper. But even if the colorful works radiate happiness, her artistic career’s beginnings were by no means carefree…”  Read more.

“Niki de Saint Phalle: Spiel Mit Mir” will be open to the public through 3 June 2012.  Learn more about the exhibition.
 

On Thursday 1 March, Niki de Saint Phalle’s daughter Laura Duke (at left in this photo) will join Jana Shenefield, archivist at the Niki Charitable Art Foundation, for a live Q&A on Niki’s life and work in southern California. The event, which will be held at Here is Elsewhere Gallery in West Hollywood, comes to us courtesy of be-Art and Yann Perreau, curator of the current HiE exhibition “Niki de Saint Phalle and the West Coast.” The exhibition, Niki’s first show in Los Angeles in a decade, examines Saint Phalle’s relationship with the Nouveaux Réalistes (including Jean Tinguely, Arman, and Daniel Spoerri) and her work in Southern California, from her 1961 “shooting paintings” in Malibu to her “Black Heroes” series realized in the late 1990s in San Diego.

Thursday’s Q&A will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at HiE @ B 231 Space in the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood (8687 Melrose Ave # G102, Blue Building, Second Floor). There will be a cover charge of $20 per person. To attend, please RSVP via email at com.be.art@gmail.com. The exhibition itself will run through 23 March.
 

From the LA Weekly comes the No. 1 Artsy Thing to Do This Week:

“As victims, I choose my paintings,” said French artist Niki de Saint Phalle, who would suspend balloons of paint or beer cans from her artwork and shoot at them. The bullets would splatter the paint and puncture canvases. Saint Phalle, who died in 2002, held shooting sessions in L.A. 50 years ago and, in her honor, 11 contemporary artists chose their own victim artworks and went to Angeles Shooting Range on January 22 to open fire. You can see the shot-up art — such as a roughed-up, tar-colored statue by Henry Taylor and red-splotched KKK villains by Noah Davis — at Here Is Elsewhere Gallery. Also on display: a gorgeous wood altar Saint Phalle built and then assaulted in 1962.

Pacific Design Center Blue Building, 8687 Melrose Avenue, Suite B-231; through March 23. (310) 904-8966, hereiselsewhere.com.
 

The German-language Koeln-Journal writes about the exhibition “Niki de Saint Phalle: Spiel Mit Mir,” at the Max Ernst Museum in Bruehl, Germany. The article begins:

“Ihre Kunst wirkt herrlich kindlich und harmonisch. Man kann sagen: Niki de Saint Phalle brachte ihre Träume aufs Papier. Aber auch wenn die bunten Werke Fröhlichkeit ausstrahlen, ihre künstlerische Karriere begann keinesfalls unbeschwert…”

In English:

“Her art is wonderfully child-like and harmonious. You could say that Niki de Saint Phalle brought her dreams to paper. But even if the colorful works radiate happiness, her artistic career’s beginnings were in no way carefree…”  Read more.

“Niki de Saint Phalle: Spiel Mit Mir” will be open to the public from 15 January to 3 June 2012.  Learn more about the exhibition.