Niki de Saint Phalle
February 27–June 11, 2015
Guggenheim Bilbao
Abandoibarra et.2
Bilbao 48001
Spain
Curators: Camille Morineau and Álvaro Rodríguez Fominaya
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is proud to present Niki de Saint Phalle, a complete retrospective of the work of Niki de Saint Phalle (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, 1930 –San Diego, California, 2002), member of the Nouveaux Réalistes and known around the world for works like her powerful, exuberant Nanas, her impressive Shooting Paintings —Tirs—, and emblematic public artworks like the Tarot Garden in Tuscany.
This exhibition, organized by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and La Réunion des Musées Nationaux–Grand Palais, Paris, with the participation of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation, is the first major retrospective of Niki de Saint Phalle’s work ever held in Spain and takes a comprehensive and original look at the artist through over 200 works and archive documents, many of which have never been published.
This broad selection faithfully documents the multiple facets—painter, sculptor, printmaker, performer, and experimental filmmaker—of an artist with a singular creative universe and a pioneering worldview, punctuated by screenings that show Saint Phalle talking about her work.
As visitors wander through the more than 2,000 square meters of exhibition space, they will come across the milestones and legends that marked the career of Niki de Saint Phalle, an artist who earned international acclaim and acknowledgment in her lifetime and, like Andy Warhol before her, knew how to attract the media’s interest.
The pieces in the show arranged in the chronological order and according to subjects, address recurring themes in Niki de Saint Phalle’s artistic trajectory, such as the power of the feminine and open defiance of social conventions. In her works, the artist combines her intense political and social engagement and radicalism with color and the optimism of her world-famous Nanas. The retrospective thus reveals a paradoxical, singular creative universe inspired by Gaudí, Dubuffet, and Pollock.
