NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE

Niki de Saint Phalle is one of the most well known artists of her gener­a­tion. The visionary outsider devel­oped a distinc­tive design vocab­u­lary and created an oeuvre as uncon­ven­tional as it is multi­fac­eted. The Nanas—her colorful, large-format female figures—laid the foun­da­tion for her inter­na­tional success and are still regarded as her trade­mark. But the self-taught artist’s creative spec­trum is much broader, and her oeuvre is more subver­sive and crit­ical of society than is widely assumed.

In an exten­sive exhi­bi­tion, the SCHIRN will shed light on the wide-ranging work of this extra­or­di­nary artist. Niki de Saint Phalle devel­oped her art based on her processing of very personal emotions and on a radi­cally femi­nist posi­tion. She took up social and polit­ical topics, crit­i­cized insti­tu­tions and role models, and with her art addressed public discourses that still have rele­vance today. Her legendary Shooting Pictures were created during provoca­tive perfor­mances, and her impres­sive instal­la­tions in public space bear witness to the trans­for­ma­tive impact of her art, which devel­oped through painting, drawing, assem­blages, actions, as well as in theater, film, and archi­tec­ture.