Niki De Saint Phalle exhibition in Milan: guided tour at Mudec

Guided tour of Niki De Saint Phalle exhibition at Mudec

Organized in eight sections, the exhibition’s itinerary narrates Niki’s artistic career, from her beginnings to her latest creations, in a diachronic but also strongly anthological narrative that traces, through the colorful, polymorphic, rounded and maternal world of her Nanas (and beyond), a far more complex personal life. Over the years, the artist has often had to destroy in order to process her pain and then rebuild, breaking conventions with intense provocations, to finally leave a lasting imprint on the art scene. Produced in collaboration with the Niki Charitable Art Foundation, the exhibition presents 110 works, including a dozen large-scale ones, as well as a fine selection of Maison Dior dresses, which also recall her past as a model in the marvelous photographic shots of her, while simultaneously offering the public a very “pop” vision of art, seen as a path toward the affirmation of the feminine. Niki de Saint Phalle, ‘woman and artist’ (as she called herself), painter, sculptor, experimental filmmaker and performer, eludes unambiguous categorization. Her monumental works, including parks and public sculptures, are intertwined with more intimate and sometimes poignant reflection. On the one hand, she is considered an independent figure and proud of her art; on the other, her physical frailty and the many injustices and social inequalities she witnessed during her lifetime highlight her humanity and sensitivity to the most vulnerable. Living in a period of great social and artistic transformations-from the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s to Nouveau réalisme, of which she was a leading exponent-Niki de Saint Phalle (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1930, La Jolla, 2002) was one of the artists who most challenged gender prejudices through art, expressing her identity through femininity, sensuality, and love of life as a creative act.