Niki & Jean, L’Art et l’Amour at Museum Tinguely

Written by Penny Tam Sunday, 14 November 2010 21:20

Basel, Switzerland - Between August 29, 2006 and January 21, 2007, the Museum Tinguely presents "Niki & Jean – L'Art et l'Amour", an exhibition dedicated to one of the most notorious and flamboyant couples in the history of art.  From the early 1960s on, Niki and Jean staged their appearances as the "Bonnie and Clyde of the arts", assuming respectively the roles of the rebellious aristocrat and the ambitious proletarian.  Their relationship – unparalleled in the art world – ruled their life, love and work.  The Museum Tinguely presents this relationship through letters, works they created together, and a great number of photographs and film documents that show the beautiful couple as the main actors in the exciting film on their life and love.

Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) and Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) start living together in Paris in 1960.  Niki, the offspring of a French aristocratic family, and Jean, from a Swiss working-class background, had already met previously when she and her first husband, Harry Mathews, visited the sculptor in his atelier in the Impasse Ronsin in 1955.

Since 1953, Jean lives in Paris with his wife, Eva Aeppli.  This is where he produces his first works: reliefs, wire sculptures, and in 1959, the “Méta-Matics”, drawing machines that enable any and everyone to create an abstract work of art.  After a childhood in the USA, Niki moves to France in 1951 where her husband studies music and she attends drama school.  She starts to paint in 1953 and on her travels discovers the work of the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi as well as Facteur Cheval and his Palais Idéal; both leave a lasting impression on her.

From the onset the relationship between Niki and Jean is shaped by their artistic collaboration.  Both artists work together on certain projects, inspiring and learning from each other.  Jean helps Niki produce a series of reliefs, she prompts him to add feathers and other colorful materials to his iron sculptures.

Happenings are an important part of their collaboration: Niki’s shooting performances are developed in common, and she plays an important role in both his Studies for an end of the world staged in 1961 and in 1962.  They collaborate with American artists such as John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg or Frank Stella and produce two plays, Variations II, Paris 1961, and The Construction of Boston, New York 1962.  In Paris, in 1966, Niki and Jean together with Martial Raysse produce the stage settings for Éloge de la Folie, a ballet choreographed by Roland Petit.  In 1970, they celebrate the tenth anniversary of the artists’ group Nouveaux Réalistes in Milan: Niki stages a shooting performance in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele whereas Jean creates a scandal with La Vittoria in front of the Duomo.  Jean plays an active role in Niki’s film projects; in 1975, in Un rêve plus long que la nuit, he stages a bloodthirsty end-of-the-world macho battle.

The glamorous couple is a frequent guest in museums.  Niki and Jean take part in exhibitions on kinetic art and, in 1962 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, with Daniel Spoerri, Robert Rauschenberg, Martial Raysse and Per Olov Ultvedt, participate in an exhibition installation entitled DYLABY that totally changes the spectators’ visual perception – the work of art becomes accessible!  HON – en Kathedral is a walk-through sculpture in the form of a reclining woman, an ephemeral installation that fascinates the Stockholm public in 1966.

They conceive art complexes, with Jean the architect of Niki’s dreams. Aided by various assistants, the "Swiss Dream Team", they carry out the iron structures of Golem, of Dragon and of a number of constructions in Niki’s Tarot Garden.  From 1969 on, Niki and Jean start working on the Cyclop, a gigantic sculpture in the form of a head, in the forest of Milly-la-Forêt; they are assisted by Bernhard Luginbühl and numerous other artist friends.  The head is in fact the main work on which both artists collaborate; it is only completed by Niki de Saint Phalle after Tinguely’s death.

The collaboration between Niki and Jean is in many aspects unique.  For over thirty years the couple create works of art together, all the while retaining their own independence.  And this goes as well for their private life.  Borne by their deep love for each other as well as by their unconditional mutual respect, Niki and Jean stage their performances as the "Bonnie and Clyde of the arts", an exciting combination of beauty and the beastly macho, an alliance of aristocracy and working-class, elegance and junk, intuition and folly.  Their letters speak of longing, desire and nostalgia, but always centred – unconditionally – round art.

Hundreds of photographs capture the image of this glamorous couple, two "beauties", whose personal performance lends the finishing touch to their works of art.  Niki and Jean personify as no other artist couple the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1960s, the belief in the strength of love, the truth of art and the power of action. 

Even later on, when each enters into a new partnership, their close relationship endures.  They marry in order to mutually secure each other’s works, and they continue to collaborate intensely to the very end, and even beyond.  Thus, the Museum Tinguely that was in part initiated by Niki is certainly an important final collaboration between both artists.

Visit Museum Tinguely at : www.tinguely.ch/