Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1420847
Menil; and the reconstruction of the model and a blow-up image of Hon—en katedral [She—A Cathedral], which commands a wall. A collaboration between her partner/later husband Jean Tinguely, Saint Phalle, and Swedish artist Per Olof Ultvedt, Hon was an international event when the 80-foot- long by 30-foot-wide sculpture of a pregnant goddess figure was installed at the Moderna Museum, Stockholm, in 1966. Some 100,000 art lovers flocked to experience it; their entry was through the sculpture's gargantuan thighs. Until now, Saint Phalle has been best known for her monumental, vibrantly colored public sculptures (exemplified by her Tarot Garden in Tuscany) — imagery that launched a still-in- production perfume in 1982, whose cobalt-blue bottle bears a golden stopper featuring smiling intertwined serpents. Kudos to the two women-led institutions, The Menil Collection and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego — respectively helmed by Rebecca Rabinow and Kathryn Kanjo, with curators Michelle White and Jill Dawsey — for bringing Saint Phalle's Tirs and Nanas to Texas. In the accompanying exhibition catalog, Saint Phalle's letter to her granddaughter reveals: "As a child I could not identify with my mother or my grandmother, my aunts or my mother's friends … I wanted the world and the world then belonged to MEN … After having rejected my parents and their [aristocratic] social class, I would be FACED WITH THIS ENORMOUS PROBLEM OF REINVENTING MYSELF … To add to the problem, I had no defined national feelings. I felt half French, half American. Also half man and half woman." "Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s," through January 23, 2022, at The Menil Collection, menil.org. Niki de Saint Phalle's (face and outlines drawn by Larry Rivers), Portrait de Clarice Rivers enceinte, 1964–1965 Niki de Saint Phalle taking aim during a shooting session at the Impasse Ronsin, Paris, 1962 Niki de Saint Phalle's Tir de Jasper Johns, 1961 Niki de Saint Phalle's Photo de la Hon repeinte, 1979 CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION, SANTEE; © NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION / ADAGP, PARIS, 2021; PHOTO KATRIN BAUMANN. COLLECTION OF ISABELLE ET DAVID LÉVY, BRUXELLES; © NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION / ADAGP, PARIS, 2021. COLLECTION MODERNA MUSEET, STOCKHOLM; © NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION / ADAGP, PARIS, 2021; PHOTO ALBIN DAHLSTRÖM / MODERNA MUSEET. PHOTO © ANDRÉ MORAIN. 58