News & Announcements

“Design Loves Art” at Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood is celebrating the work of Niki de Saint Phalle with an exhibition of works on paper and small sculptures in conjunction with Pacific Standard Time’s Performance and Public Art Festival.

Niki de Saint Phalle, Californian Diary (Order and Chaos), 1994.
© 2011 Niki Charitable Art Foundation. All rights reserved.

On the second floor of the Blue Building, curator Yann Perreau has organized an exhibit at Here is Elsewhere Gallery (Space B231) entitled “Niki de Saint Phalle & the West Coast,” which marks Saint Phalle’s first show in Los Angeles in a decade. The collection examines Saint Phalle’s relationship with the Nouveaux Réalistes (Tinguely, Spoerri, Arman) and her work in Southern California. From her “Shooting Paintings” in Malibu from 1961 to her “Black Heroes” series realized in the late 1990s in San Diego, Saint Phalle found the West Coast a unique, lifelong source of inspiration.

The exhibit runs from 26 January to 23 March 2012 at HiE @ B 231 Space in the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood (8687 Melrose Ave # G102, Blue Building, Second Floor). Learn more.
 

ArtDaily.org writes about “Niki de Saint Phalle: Spiel Mit Mir” (Niki de Saint Phalle: Play With Me), a new survey exhibition of Niki’s work that opened on 15 January at the Max Ernst Museum in Bruehl, Germany:

“The Max Ernst Museum is showing the wide-ranging oeuvre of the multifaceted artist Niki de Saint Phalle, undoubtedly one of the most important artists of the 20th century, in a large survey exhibition. Through her paintings, assemblages, shooting paintings (tirs), sculptures, and installations, this artist created a unique cosmos which established her international reputation.

“The exhibition at the Max Ernst Museum provides an extensive overview of her oeuvre, from the early paintings to the late sculptures…. The exhibition of more than 150 works, curated by Guido Magnaguagno, former director of the Tinguely Museum in Basel, embraces the sculptures on loan from the Niki Charitable Art Foundation in California and Paris, the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, and the Musée d’art moderne in Nice, to all of which Niki de Saint Phalle made generous donations of her works. The show also features works from numerous private and public lenders. It has been complemented, moreover, by quintessential works by Jean Tinguely, her partner of many years, and paintings by her first teacher, the still largely unknown Hugh Weiss.”

“Niki de Saint Phalle: Spiel Mit Mir” at the Max Ernst Museum in Bruehl, Germany, will be open to the public from 15 January to 3 June 2012. Read more.
 

In the current LA Weekly, Sam Bloch offers a “Pacific Standard Time Performance Art Festival Preview,” with a flashback to the 1960s and a flash-forward to the upcoming PST event in Los Angeles on January 22:

“In the early 1960s, L.A. was taking the piss out of action painting, the solitary practice of splattering paint all over a canvas. Behind a beatnik hangout on the Sunset Strip, the glamorous French émigré Niki de Saint Phalle hung bladders of paint and King Kong masks on a wooden canvas and shot it up with pals like John Cage and Jane Fonda. She called these communal paintings tirs — French for ‘gunshot.’ …

“Today staged violence is no cakewalk. For safety reasons, the re-enactment of Saint Phalle’s tirs will be invitation-only, held at an undisclosed outdoor shooting range in the foothills. ‘I’m open to reinterpretation,’ says curator Yael Lipschutz, ‘but to do this with stuntmen or fake guns seems silly.’ (Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tirs: Reloaded, January 22, invitation only.) Read more.
 

Culture24 has written a glowing account of the recent gift by Eric and Jean Cass of 15 works by Niki de Saint Phalle to the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art:

“An ‘unprecedented’ donation has allowed the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art to receive 15 works by larger-than-life French artist Niki de Saint Phalle, complementing four of her existing sculptures and installations in the most significant bequest of modern art ever given to the city’s collection.

“A print, wallpaper, rare archive material and sculptures in Saint Phalle’s typically colourful style are among the works arriving following a deal between the Contemporary Art Society and Eric and Jean Cass. They are expected to form an exhibition at the end of 2013. […]

“‘This extraordinary and generous donation is unprecedented for the gallery,’ said Gordon Matheson, the Leader of Glasgow City Council. ‘It’s hard to properly express just how grateful we are. These works are unique and beautiful and will captivate and thrill our visitors.'” Read more.
 

At high noon on Sunday, 22 January 2012, the PST Performance and Public Art Festival in Los Angeles will stage “Tirs: Reloaded,” an hommage to Niki de Saint Phalle commemorating an extraordinary event that took place fifty years earlier.

Flashback to Los Angeles, spring 1962: Invited to California by legendary gallerist Virginia Dwan, nouveau réaliste artist Niki de Saint Phalle realizes the tirs (“shooting paintings”) with her partner, Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, for the first time in the United States. In front of a crowd that includes John Cage, Ed Ruscha, Jane Fonda, and Leo Castelli, Niki creates assemblages of disparate objects and bladders of paint which, when shot, transform spontaneously into wild dispersions of colors and textures.

To commemorate this art-historical happening, contemporary artists Sterling Ruby, Melanie Schiff, and others will shoot up new work at a special event to be held at midday on Sunday 22 January 2012. Due to the nature of this performance, this event is invitation-only — but check back following the festival to see documentation from the event on the festival web site. Of course, if you’re in L.A. during the festival, you might want to check the whole show out for yourself. Organized by the California/International Art Foundation, it runs from 19–29 January 2012. For details, download the festival program. [PDF]
 

If you’re in Paris on Wednesday 14 December, be sure to stop by for the opening of the new exhibition at Galerie Guy Pieters in the 8th arrondissement. The cocktail de l’exposition runs from 5pm to 8pm on 14 December, while the show itself will run from 15 December 2011 through 28 January 2012. Galerie Guy Pieters, located at 2 Avenue Matignon in Paris, is open Tuesday–Saturday from 10am to 7pm and can be contacted by phone at +33 (0)1 42 89 26 83 or via email at paris@guypietersgallery.com.
 

A “unique and beautiful” £2 million collection of 15 works of art by Niki de Saint Phalle is being donated to the city of Glasgow. The 15 works, the most significant bequest to the city’s galleries in recent years, are being donated to the city by Eric and Jean Cass, business people who have collected art for more than 30 years and are now dispersing their collection through the Contemporary Art Society.

The works, including sculptures, a print, wallpaper and rare archive material, will make Glasgow’s the largest collection of the French artist’s work in the UK. They will be shown at an exhibition planned for the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in 2013. The gift, presented by the Contemporary Art Society, adds to the two sculptures and two installations by Niki de Saint Phalle that the city already owns. Read more.
 

Chaumont-sur-Marne, a town of 30,000 in eastern France, is the first stop of the new Pompidou Mobile, a traveling gallery of modern and contemporary art conceived by Alain Seban, current director of the Pompidou Center in Paris.

Curator Emma Lavigne was chosen to put together “La Couleur,” the Pompidou Mobile’s first show, which opened in Chaumont in mid-October and runs there until 15 January. Inside the traveling exhibition’s tents are 14 masterpieces from the Paris museum’s permanent collection. Artists include modern masters — Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Léger, Alexander Calder, and Niki de Saint Phalle — and a sprinkling of contemporary artists including Olafur Eliasson and Bruce Nauman. Entrance to the museum is free, a rarity in France. The museum will next set up camp on its tour of France early next year in Cambrai, then heads to Boulogne-sur-Mer in May. Read more.
 

The Niki Charitable Art Foundation is delighted to announce the recent gift of a work of great historical and artistic significance by Niki de Saint Phalle to The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

“Tir de l’Ambassade Américaine (Shooting Painting American Embassy), 20 June 1961” is a work created by Niki de Saint Phalle for a performance of the composition “Variations II” by John Cage. The composition was realized by David Tudor for the amplified piano on June 20, 1961, at the Theater of the Embassy of the United States in Paris. The décor for the performance was entrusted to Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean Tinguely, and Niki de Saint Phalle. The shooting (“tir”) of the rifle in the creation of this work did not take place during the concert, but before.

“Tir de l’Ambassade Américaine (Shooting Painting American Embassy), 20 June 1961,” given to MoMA in September 2011, is currently on exhibit on the fourth floor of the museum. Photos of the installation are by photographer Thomas Griesel.

Tir de l’Ambassade Américaine (Shooting Painting American Embassy), 20 June 1961
96.5 x 26 x 8.7 inches
245 x 66 x 22 cm
Paint, plaster, wood, plastic bags, shoe, twine, metal seat, axe, metal can, toy gun, wire mesh, and other objects on wood
 

The front lawn of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, grew a little brighter this week with the installation of four massive, colorful sculptures by Niki de Saint Phalle.

The sculptures — a maternal totem, a cat and two seals — are on loan from the Niki Charitable Art Foundation for six months to a year, said Carina Courtright, president of the center’s board of trustees.

“I specifically wanted to have people to see them from the street and bring color to the front of the center,” Courtright told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “They’re so joyful. … They kind of personify a lot of what we’re trying to do at the center — playfulness, fun activities and incorporating more things that draw people in.” Read more.