Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s / Jill Dawsey, Michelle White ; with essays by Amelia Jones, Ariana Reines, and Alena J. Williams ; and contributions by Molly Everett and Kyla McDonald.
Published in conjuction with an exhibition of the same title held at The Menil Collection, Houston, September 10, 2021-January 23, 2022; and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, April 3-July 17, 2022. Includes bibliographical references.
Contents:
Wild maid, wild soul, a wild, wild weed: Niki de Saint Phalle's fierce femininities in the 1960s / Amelia Jones. The outside world: Niki de Saint Phalle's Tirs and American art, 1961-1963 / Michelle White -- The first free women: Niki de Saint Phalle's Nanas / Jill Dawsey -- Works of art -- Niki de Saint Phalle and the ethics of ambiguity / Alena J. Williams -- Inside the empress / Ariana Reines -- Wild maid, wild soul, a wild, wild weed: Niki de Saint Phalle's fierce femininities in the 1960s / Amelia Jones.
Summary:
"A timely reassessment of the artist's early performances and feminist sculptures, affirming their radical engagements and art historical significance. This volume is a focused look at two bodies of work, the Tirs ("shooting paintings") and Nanas ("dames"), in the experimental 1960s practice of the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002). Alongside a poetic response to the work, four essays treat Saint Phalle's oeuvre as works of radical performance and feminist art, as well as highlighting her transatlantic projects and collaborations. A chronology with photo-documentation and known participants details for the first time all Tirs shooting events in Europe and the United States, and another timeline recaps Saint Phalle's life in the 1960s. Tirs were made by firing a .22 caliber rifle at the surfaces of paintings. The bullets pierced bags of pigment, aerosol paint cans, or even food embedded in dense assemblages covered in painted plaster. Saint Phalle's increasingly liberated female figures with outstretched arms, curvaceous forms, and powerful poses developed into her well-known Nanas, an evolution contemporaneous with the rise of a Euro-American feminist movement."-- Publisher description.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.