Nouveau réalisme (new realism) refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany^[1] and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan. Pierre Restany wrote the original manifesto for the group, titled the "Constitutive Declaration of New Realism," in April 1960, proclaiming, "Nouveau Réalisme—new ways of perceiving the real."^[2] This joint declaration was signed on 27 October 1960, in Yves Klein's workshop, by nine people: Yves Klein, Arman, Martial Raysse, Pierre Restany, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and the Ultra-Lettrists, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Jacques de la Villeglé; in 1961 these were joined by César, Mimmo Rotella, then Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps. The artist Christo showed with the group.

Contemporaries of American pop art, and often conceived as its transposition in France, new realism was, along with Fluxus and other groups, one of the numerous tendencies of the avant-garde in the 1960s. It was dissolved in 1970.^[2]

The first exposition of the nouveaux réalistes took place in November 1960 at the Paris "Festival d'avant-garde." This exposition was followed by others: in May 1961 at the Gallery J. in Paris; International Exhibition of the New Realists, a survey of contemporary American Pop Art and the Nouveau Réalisme movement at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York at the end of 1962; and at the Biennale of San Marino in 1963 (which would be the last collective show by the group). The movement had difficulty maintaining a cohesive program after the death of Yves Klein in June, 1962.

Conceptions of the nouveaux réalistes[link]

The members of the nouveaux réalistes group tended to see the world as an image from which they could take parts and incorporate them into their works—as they sought to bring life and art closer together. They declared that they had come together on the basis of a new and real awareness of their "collective singularity", meaning that they were together in spite of, or perhaps because of, their differences. But for all the diversity of their plastic language, they perceived a common basis for their work; this being a method of direct appropriation of reality, equivalent, in the terms used by Pierre Restany, to a "poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality".^[3]

Thus the nouveaux réalistes advocated a return to "reality" in opposition to the lyricism of abstract painting. They also wanted to avoid what they saw as the traps of figurative art, which was seen as either petty-bourgeois or as Stalinist socialist realism. Hence the Nouveau Réalistes used exterior objects to give an account of the reality of their time. They were the inventor of the décollage technique (the opposite of collages), in particular through the use of lacerated posters—a technique mastered by François Dufrene, Jacques Villeglé, Mimmo Rotella and Raymond Hains. Often these artists worked collaboratively and it was their intention to present their artworks in the city of Paris anonymously.

The term "new realism" was first used in May 1960 by Pierre Restany, to describe the works of Arman, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely and Jacques Villeglé as they exhibited their work in Milan. He had discussed this term before with Yves Klein (who died prematurely in 1962), who preferred the expression "today's realism" (réalisme d'aujourd'hui) and criticized the term "New." After the first "Manifesto of New Realism," a second manifesto, titled "40° above Dada" (40° au-dessus de Dada) was written between 17 May and 10 June 1961. César, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint-Phalle (then practicing "shooting paintings") and Gérard Deschamps then joined the movement, followed by Christo in 1963. Klein, however, started to distance himself from the group around 1961, disliking Restany's insistence on a Dadaist heritage.

Nouveau réalistes made extensive use of collage and assemblage, using real objects incorporated directly into the work and acknowledging a debt to the readymades of Marcel Duchamp. But the New Realism movement has often been compared to the Pop Art movement in New York for their use and critique of mass-produced commercial objects (Villeglé's ripped cinema posters, Arman's collections of detritus and trash), although Nouveau Réalisme maintained closer ties with Dada than with Pop Art.

The new realists in architecture[link]

"The new realists" is also a term applied to a group of Australian Architects determined to create a "New Realism" in Architecture, based on the understanding of past developments in the discipline of Architecture and modern day explorations of new technologies in the fields of design and building technology.

Ils prennent position pour un retour à la réalité, en opposition avec le lyrisme de la peinture abstraite de cette époque mais sans tomber dans le piège de la figuration connotée (au choix) petite-bourgeoise ou stalinienne, et préconisent l'utilisation d'objets existants pour rendre la réalité de leur temps, à l'image des ready-made de Marcel Duchamp. Ces conceptions s'incarnent notamment dans un art de l'assemblage et de l'accumulation, qui utilise telle quelle la réalité quotidienne : accumulations d'objets par Arman, affiches de cinéma lacérées par Jacques Villeglé...

La première exposition du groupe des nouveaux réalistes a lieu en novembre 1960 au Festival d'avant-garde de Paris. Elle sera suivie d'une autre en mai 1961 à la galerie J., à New York en 1962 et à la Biennale de San Marino en 1963 qui marque la dernière exposition collective du groupe.

The new realists[link]

• 

  Arman, Foto: Lothar Wolleh

• 

  Villiglé, Foto: Lothar Wolleh

• 

  Niki de Saint Phalle, Foto:Lothar Wolleh

• 

  Jean Tinguely, Foto Lothar Wolleh

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Jill Carrick, Nouveau Réalisme, 1960s France, and the Neo-avant-garde: Topographies of Chance and Return, Ashgate Press, 2010. [1]
• New Realisms, 1957–1962: Object Strategies Between Readymade and Spectacle, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2010.
• Pierre Restany, Manifeste des Nouveaux Réalistes, Editions Dilecta, Paris, 2007.

External links[link]

• "New Realism", article from the Centre Pompidou
• New Realism website, listing each of the artists

Yves Klein (French pronunciation: [iv klɛ̃]; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany. Klein was a pioneer in the development of Performance art, and is seen as an inspiration to and as a forerunner of Minimal art, as well as Pop art.

Biography[link]

Klein was born in Nice, in the Alpes-Maritimes department of France. His parents, Fred Klein and Marie Raymond, were both painters. His father painted in a loose Post-impressionist style, while his mother was a leading figure in Art informel, and held regular soirées with other leading practitioners of this Parisian abstract movement.

From 1942 to 1946, Yves Klein studied at the École Nationale de la Marine Marchande and the École Nationale des Langues Orientales and began practicing judo. At this time, he became friends with Arman Fernandez and Claude Pascal and started to paint. At the age of nineteen, Klein and his friends lay on a beach in the south of France, and divided the world between themselves; Arman chose the earth, Claude, words, while Yves chose the ethereal space surrounding the planet, which he then proceeded to sign:

With this famous symbolic gesture of signing the sky, Klein had foreseen, as in a reverie, the thrust of his art from that time onwards—a quest to reach the far side of the infinite.^[1]

Between 1947 and 1948,^[2] Klein conceived his Monotone Symphony (1949, formally The Monotone-Silence Symphony) that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained chord followed by a 20-minute silence^[3][4] – a precedent to both La Monte Young's drone music and John Cage's 4′33″.^{[citation needed]} During the years 1948 to 1952, he traveled to Italy, Great Britain, Spain, and Japan. In Japan, at the early age of 25, he became a master at judo receiving the rank of yodan (4th dan/degree black-belt) from the Kodokan, which at that time was a remarkable achievement for a westerner. He also stayed in Japan in 1953. Klein later wrote a book on Judo called Les fondements du judo. In 1954, Klein settled permanently in Paris and began in earnest to establish himself in the art world.

Artwork[link]

Monochrome works: The Blue Epoch[link]

Yves Klein, IKB 191, 1962.

Although Klein had painted monochromes as early as 1949, and held the first private exhibition of this work in 1950, his first public showing was the publication of the Artist's book Yves: Peintures in November 1954. Parodying a traditional catalogue, the book featured a series of intense monochromes linked to various cities he had lived in during the previous years. Yves: Peintures anticipated his first two shows of oil paintings, at the Club des Solitaires, Paris, October 1955 and Yves: Proposition monochromes at Gallery Colette Allendy, February 1956. Public responses to these shows, which displayed orange, yellow, red, pink and blue monochromes, deeply disappointed Klein, as people went from painting to painting, linking them together as a sort of mosaic.

From the reactions of the audience, [Klein] realized that...viewers thought his various, uniformly colored canvases amounted to a new kind of bright, abstract interior decoration. Shocked at this misunderstanding, Klein knew a further and decisive step in the direction of monochrome art would have to be taken...From that time onwards he would concentrate on one single, primary color alone: blue.^[5]

The next exhibition, 'Proposte Monochrome, Epoca Blu' (Proposition Monochrome; Blue Epoch) at the Gallery Apollinaire, Milan, (January 1957), featured 11 identical blue canvases, using ultramarine pigment suspended in a synthetic resin 'Rhodopas'. Discovered with the help of Edouard Adam, a Parisian paint dealer, the optical effect retained the brilliance of the pigment which, when suspended in linseed oil, tended to become dull. Klein later patented this recipe to maintain the "authenticity of the pure idea."^[6] This colour, reminiscent of the lapis lazuli used to paint the Madonna's robes in medieval paintings, was to become famous as International Klein Blue (IKB). The paintings were attached to poles placed 20 cm away from the walls to increase their spatial ambiguities.

The show was a critical and commercial success, traveling to Paris, Düsseldorf and London. The Parisian exhibition, at the Iris Clert Gallery in May 1957, became a seminal happening.^[7] To mark the opening, 1001 blue balloons were released and blue postcards were sent out using IKB stamps that Klein had bribed the postal service to accept as legitimate.^[8] Concurrently, an exhibition of tubs of blue pigment and fire paintings was held at Gallery Collette Allendy.

[edit] The Void

For his next exhibition at the Iris Clert Gallery (April 1958), Klein chose to show nothing whatsoever, called La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l’état matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée, Le Vide (The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void): he removed everything in the gallery space except a large cabinet, painted every surface white, and then staged an elaborate entrance procedure for the opening night; The gallery's window was painted blue, and a blue curtain was hung in the entrance lobby, accompanied by republican guards and blue cocktails. Thanks to an enormous publicity drive, 3000 people were forced to queue up, waiting to be let in to an empty room.^[9]

Recently my work with color has led me, in spite of myself, to search little by little, with some assistance (from the observer, from the translator), for the realization of matter, and I have decided to end the battle. My paintings are now invisible and I would like to show them in a clear and positive manner, in my next Parisian exhibition at Iris Clert's.^[10]

Later in the year, he was invited to decorate the Gelsenkirchen Opera House, Germany, with a series of vast blue murals, the largest of which were 20 metres by 7 metres. The Opera House was inaugurated in December 1959. Klein celebrated the commission by travelling to Cascia, Italy, to place an ex-voto offering at the Saint Rita Monastery. The offering took the form of a small transparent plastic box containing three compartments; one filled with IKB pigment, one filled with pink pigment, and one with gold leaf inside. The container was only rediscovered in 1980.

Klein's last two exhibitions at Iris Clert's were Vitesse Pure et Stabilité Monochrome (Sheer Speed and Monochrome Stability), November 1958, a collaboration with Jean Tinguely, of kinetic sculptures, and Bas-Reliefs dans une Forêt d’Éponges (Bas-Reliefs in a Sponge Forest), June 1959, a collection of sponges that Klein had used to paint IKB canvases, mounted on steel rods and set in rocks that he'd found in his parents' garden.

Anthropométries[link]

Despite the IKB paintings being uniformly coloured, Klein experimented with various methods of applying the paint; firstly different rollers and then later sponges, created a series of varied surfaces. This experimentalism would lead to a number of works Klein made using naked female models covered in blue paint and dragged across or laid upon canvases to make the image, using the models as "living brushes". This type of work he called Anthropometry. Other paintings in this method of production include "recordings" of rain that Klein made by driving around in the rain at 70 miles per hour with a canvas tied to the roof of his car, and canvases with patterns of soot created by scorching the canvas with gas burners.

Klein and Arman were continually involved with each other creatively, both as Nouveaux Réalistes and as friends. Both from Nice, the two worked together for many years and Arman even named his son, Yves Arman after Yves Klein who was his god-father.

Sometimes the creation of these paintings was turned into a kind of performance art—an event in 1960, for example, had an audience dressed in formal evening wear watching the models go about their task while an instrumental ensemble played Klein's 1949 The Monotone Symphony (a single 20-minute sustained chord followed by a 20-minute silence).^[11]

In the performance piece, Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle (Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility) 1959–62, he offered empty spaces in the city in exchange for gold. He wanted his buyers to experience The Void by selling them empty space. In his view this experience could only be paid for in the purest material: gold. In exchange, he gave a certificate of ownership to the buyer. As the second part of the piece, performed on the Seine with an Art critic in attendance, if the buyer agreed to set fire to the certificate, Klein would throw half the gold into the river, in order to restore the "natural order" that he had unbalanced by selling the empty space (that was now not "empty" anymore). He used the other half of the gold to create a series of gold-leafed works, which, along with a series of pink monochromes, began to augment his blue monochromes toward the end of his life.

Aero works[link]

Klein is also well known for a photomontage, Saut dans le vide (Leap into the Void) [3], originally published in the artist's book Dimanche, which apparently shows him jumping off a wall, arms outstretched, towards the pavement. Klein used the photograph as evidence of his ability to undertake unaided lunar travel. In fact, "Saut dans le vide", published as part of a broadside on the part of Klein (the "artist of space") denouncing NASA's own lunar expeditions as hubris and folly, was a photomontage in which the large tarpaulin Klein leaped onto was removed from the final image.

Klein's work revolved around a Zen-influenced concept he came to describe as "le Vide" (the Void). Klein's Void is a nirvana-like state that is void of worldly influences; a neutral zone where one is inspired to pay attention to ones own sensibilities, and to "reality" as opposed to "representation". Klein presented his work in forms that were recognized as art—paintings, a book, a musical composition—but then would take away the expected content of that form (paintings without pictures, a book without words, a musical composition without in fact composition) leaving only a shell, as it were. In this way he tried to create for the audience his "Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility". Instead of representing objects in a subjective, artistic way, Klein wanted his subjects to be represented by their imprint: the image of their absence. Klein's work strongly refers to a theoretical/arthistorical context as well as to philosophy/metaphysics and with his work he aimed to combine these. He tried to make his audience experience a state where an idea could simultaneously be "felt" as well as "understood".

Multiples[link]

As well as painting flat canvases, Klein produced a series of works throughout his career that blurred the edges between painting and sculpture. He appropriated plaster casts of famous sculptures, such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo, by painting them International Klein Blue; he painted a globe, 3D reliefs of areas of France and dowels which he hung from the ceiling as rain; He also stuck sponges to canvases and painted dinner plates. Many of these works were later manufactured as editioned multiples after his death.

In Blue Obelisk, a project that he had failed to realise in 1958, but that finally happened in 1983, he appropriated the Place de la Concorde by shining blue spotlights onto the central obelisk.

Last years[link]

The critic Pierre Restany, whom he had met during his first public exhibition at the Club Solitaire,^{[12][not in citation given]} founded the Nouveau Réalisme group in Klein's apartment on 27 October 1960. Founding members were Arman, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, and Jacques Villeglé, with Niki de Saint Phalle, Christo and Gérard Deschamps joining later. Normally seen as a French version of Pop Art, the aim of the group was stated as 'New Realism=New Perceptual Approaches To The Real'.^{[13][not in citation given]}

A large retrospective was held at Krefeld, Germany, January 1961, followed by an unsuccessful opening at Leo Castelli's Gallery, New York, in which Klein failed to sell a single painting. He stayed with Rotraut Uecker at the Chelsea Hotel for the duration of the exhibition; and, while there, he wrote the "Chelsea Hotel Manifesto", a defence against the 'mutual incomprehension' provoked by the exhibition.[4]^{[not in citation given]} He moved on to exhibit at the Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, and traveled extensively in the Western U.S., visiting Death Valley in the Mojave Desert. On 21 January 1962, in an elaborate ceremony in which Klein dressed as a Knight of the Order of St Sebastian, he married Rotraut Uecker, sister of German artist Günther Uecker, at Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs, Paris.^{[citation needed]} His last works included painting geophysical reliefs of France and casting his friends' torsos, painting them blue, and attaching them to gold-leafed supports.^{[citation needed]}

He suffered a heart attack while watching the film Mondo Cane (in which he is featured) at the Cannes Film Festival on 11 May 1962. Two more heart attacks followed, the second of which killed him on 6 June 1962. His son, Yves, was born a few months later in Nice.^[14]

His son, Yves Amu Klein, grew up to study architecture, design, cybernetics theory of systems, and Fine Arts sculpture. He went on to create robotized sculptures.^[15]

Legacy[link]

Unaware of the importance of the Nouveau Réalisme movement until the 1990s, New York critics of Klein's time tried to classify him as neo-Dada, and other critics, such as Thomas McEvilley in an essay submitted to Artforum in 1982, classified Klein as an early, though enigmatic, postmodernist.^[16]

Alongside works by Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning, Yves Klein's painting RE 46 (1960) was among the top-five sellers at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art sale in May 2006. His monochromatic blue sponge painting sold for $4,720,000. Previously, his painting RE I (1958) had sold for $6,716,000 at Christie's New York in November 2000.^[17] In 2008, MG 9 (1962), a monochromatic gold painting, sold for $21,000,000 at Christie's.^[18] FC1 (Fire Color 1) (1962), a nearly 10-foot long panel created with a blowtorch, water and two models, sold for $36.4 million at Christie's.^[19]

The Brisbane band Yves Klein Blue is named after Klein's International Klein Blue.

Homage[link]

• Marc de Verneuil and Mélanie Marbach, Zone de sensibilité picturale immatérielle (1962–2012), 26 January 2012, Paris (double hommage to Yves Klein and Dino Buzatti on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of their collaborative work)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yves Klein

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Yves Klein

• Yves Klein Archives.org – official website
• Yves Klein, Obsession de la lévitation, purpose 6, autumn 2007.
• Klein at Art Minimal & Conceptual Only
• Real Immaterial: Superstudio and Yves Klein Review of "Yves Klein: Air Architecture" in X-TRA : Contemporary Art Quarterly
• On-line tribute to International Klein Blue
• Yves le monochrome – Works of a 'painter of space'
• Klein at the Centre Pompidou by Joseph Nechvatal
• Yves Klein biography in cosmopolis.ch
• History of International Klein Blue and Yves Klein's works in Imprint

Schloss Mainberg, his birthplace

Fritz Gunter Sachs (14 November 1932 – 7 May 2011) was a German photographer, author, industrialist, and latterly head of an institute that researched claims of astrology. As a young man he became a sportsman, then gained international fame as a documentary film-maker and documentary photographer. He was interested in astrology and its connection with mathematics and statistics.

Early life and family[link]

Sachs was born in southern Germany.^[1] His mother was the daughter of Wilhelm von Opel; his father was Willy Sachs, sole owner of Fichtel & Sachs, a leading manufacturer of ball bearings and one of Germany’s biggest automobile suppliers. Willy was known to Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler^[2][3] and arrested by the American military after the war but finally declared a follower and released. Gunter Sachs commented on his father’s past in several publications.^[4] Willy committed suicide in 1958 by shooting himself.^[5] Sachs' brother, Ernst Wilhelm, died in an avalanche in 1977.^[5]

Personal life[link]

A playboy^[5] in his early years, Sachs was romantically linked to the former Iranian queen Soraya Esfandiary.^[6] He married three times.^[6] His first wife, Anne-Marie Faure, died in 1958 during surgery.^[6] He courted his second wife, Brigitte Bardot, by flying over her villa on the French Riviera in a helicopter and dropping hundreds of roses. The couple were married on 14 July 1966 in Las Vegas;^[1] they divorced in 1969.^[6] His final marriage was to Swedish former model, Mirja Larsson, (who was 26 at the time of their engagement^[7]) which lasted from 1969 until his death.^[6] He had a son Rolf Sachs (born 1955),^[5] with his first wife, and a further two sons (Christian Gunnar and Claus Alexander) with his third wife.^[8]

Sachs became a Swiss citizen in 1976.^[5]

Sports[link]

From 1969 until his death, Sachs was the chairman of the St. Moritz Bobsleigh Club.^[9] Turn 13 of the St. Moritz-Celerina Olympic Bobrun is named in his honor.

Art collector[link]

Sachs' extensive art collection included works by Jean Fautrier, Andy Warhol, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, Mel Ramos, and Allen Jones. He also owned important pieces from the Nouveau réalisme school including Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Arman, and Martial Raysse.^[10] Many of these artists were involved in the 1969 design of the legendary pop-art-apartment in the tower of the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz, which quickly gained the art world's attention. From 1967 to 1975 Sachs, together with Prince Konstantin of Bavaria, co-founded and headed the association for the Modern Art Museum in Munich (MAM), which lobbied for the construction of a comprehensive museum of contemporary art in Munich and mounted monthly exhibitions at Villa Stuck. Victor Vasarely, Georg Baselitz, Heinz Edelmann, Christo, Cy Twombly, Alexander Calder, Heinz Mack and Jean Tinguely, Roy Lichtenstein, and Gotthard Graubner found their way into the rooms of the museum. In 1972 he opened a gallery in Hamburg and organised the first European exhibition of his friend Warhol.

In May 2006, Sachs sold one of Warhol’s silk screens of Bardot at auction for $3 million.^[11] The Sachs family sold part of his collection of Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme through Sotheby's in May 2012.

Photographer[link]

Since 1972, Sachs was working professionally as a photographer, in 1973 he caused a stir with the first nude photograph of French Vogue. In 1991 he worked with Claudia Schiffer on the "Heroines" series. He gained international recognition in 1974 with a special show at the Photokina trade show for which he also designed the official exhibition poster. In 1976 he was awarded the Leica Award. At the 'German photo days' and the Photokina he received prizes for "Die Farbe Weiss" in 1994 and for "Die Farbe Rot" in 1995.

The focus of his photography are surreal nudes and landscapes, which were published in no less than seven image volumes. Early on, Sachs also experimented with digital photography. The proceeds from the sale of his photographs and illustrated books went into the Mirja Sachs Foundation, which helps children in need.

Astrological research[link]

In the 1990s, Sachs made the international newspapers again after he commissioned major research into sun sign astrology using large samples.^{[citation needed]} Sachs set out to test the assumptions of astrologers by gathering a team of scientists and statisticians which, over two years, analysed the lives of nearly one million men and women.

"In every case, there were significant results, way beyond what is explicable through mere coincidence," he is quoted as saying by the Daily Mail newspaper on 6 November 1997.

To facilitate the research he set up the "Institute for the Empirical and Mathematical Examination of the Possible Truth of Astrology in Relation to Human Behaviour".^{[citation needed]} Then, using established statistical techniques and with help from the official statistics office in Switzerland (where the authorities have recorded the date and hour of birth of every citizen since 1875), his team gathered statistics on every aspect of human life.

His methodology and the statistical analysis have been criticized by mathematicians. They found serious errors in all parts and deny any statistical significance after the necessary corrections in his data.^[12]

Death[link]

Sachs committed suicide on 7 May 2011 by a gunshot wound to the head^[13][14] at his home in Gstaad, Switzerland. The suicide note stated that he acted because of what he defined as "hopeless illness A." (which some have speculated to be Alzheimer's^[15]) adding that "The loss of mental control over my life was an undignified condition, which I decided to counter decisively".^[6]

Literature[link]

• Sachs, Gunter: The Astrology File: Scientific Proof of the Link Between Star Signs and Human Behaviour. Orion Books (December 1999). ISBN 0-7528-1789-2
• Elwell, Dennis: Cosmic Loom, 2nd edition 1999. The Urania Trust. ISBN 0-04-133027-7. Discussion and interpretation of some of Gunter Sachs results and related material.

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.guntersachs.ch/ (German)
• http://www.gunter-sachs.de (German)
• http://www.astrology-and-science.com
• Obituary of Gunter Sachs, The Daily Telegraph, 9 May 2011

Niki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle (29 October 1930 – 21 May 2002) was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker.

The early years[link]

The Golem, Kiryat Hayovel, Israel

Niki de Saint Phalle was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris, to Count André-Marie Fal de Saint Phalle (1906–1987), a French banker, and his American wife, the former Jeanne Jacqueline Harper (1908–1980).^[1][2][3] She had four siblings, and a double first cousin was French novelist Thérèse de Saint Phalle (Baroness Jehan de Drouas). After being wiped out financially during the Great Depression, the family moved from France to the United States in 1933, where her father worked as manager of the American branch of the Saint Phalle family's bank. Saint Phalle enrolled at the prestigious Brearley School in New York City, but she was dismissed for painting fig leaves red on the school's statuary. She went on to attend Oldfields School in Glencoe, Maryland where she graduated in 1947. During her teenaged years, Saint Phalle was a fashion model; at the age of sixteen, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine (September 26, 1949), and, three years later, on the November 1952 cover of French Vogue.

At eighteen, Saint Phalle eloped with author Harry Mathews, whom she had known since the age of twelve, and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. While her husband studied music at Harvard University, Saint Phalle began to paint, experimenting with different media and styles. Their first child, Laura, was born in April 1951.

Saint Phalle rejected the staid, conservative values of her family, which dictated domestic positions for wives and particular rules of conduct. Poet John Ashbery recalled that Saint Phalle's artistic pursuits were rejected by members of Saint Phalle clan: her uncle "French banker Count Alexandre de Saint-Phalle, ... reportedly takes a dim view of her artistic activities," Ashbery observed.^[4] However, after marrying young and becoming a mother, she found herself living the same bourgeois lifestyle that she had attempted to reject; the internal conflict caused her to suffer a nervous breakdown. As a form of therapy, she was urged to pursue her painting.

While in Paris on a modeling assignment, Saint Phalle was introduced to the American painter, Hugh Weiss, who became both her friend and mentor. He encouraged her to continue painting in her self-taught style.

She subsequently moved to Deià, Majorca, Spain, where her son, Philip, was born in May 1955. While in Spain, Saint Phalle read the works of Proust and visited Madrid and Barcelona, where she became deeply affected by the work of Antonio Gaudí. Gaudí's influence opened many previously unimagined possibilities for Saint Phalle, especially with regard to the use of unusual materials and objets-trouvés as structural elements in sculpture and architecture. Saint Phalle was particularly struck by Gaudí's "Park Güell" which persuaded her to create one day her own garden-based artwork that would combine both artistic and natural elements.

Saint Phalle continued to paint, particularly after she and her family moved to Paris in the mid-1950s. Her first art exhibition was held in 1956 in Switzerland, where she displayed her naïve style of oil painting. She then took up collage work that often featured images of the instruments of violence, such as guns and knives.

In the late 1950s, Saint Phalle was ill with hyperthyroidism which was eventually treated by an operation in 1958. Sometime during the early 1960s, she left her first husband.^[5]

Nanas[link]

After the "Shooting paintings" came a period when she explored the various roles of women. She made life size dolls of women, such as brides and mothers giving birth. They were usually dressed in white. They were primarily made of polyester with a wire framework. They were generally created from papier mâché.

1964

Inspired by the pregnancy of her friend Clarice Rivers, the wife of American artist Larry Rivers, she began to use her artwork to consider archetypal female figures in relation to her thinking on the position of women in society. Her artistic expression of the proverbial everywoman were named 'Nanas'. The first of these freely posed forms—made of papier-mâché, yarn, and cloth—were exhibited at the Alexander Iolas Gallery in Paris in September 1965. For this show, Iolas published her first artist book that includes her handwritten words in combination with her drawings of 'Bananas'. Encouraged by Iolas, she started a highly productive output of graphic work that accompanied exhibitions that included posters, books, and writings.

In 1966, Saint Phalle collaborated with fellow artist Jean Tinguely and Per Olof Ultvedt on a large-scale sculpture installation, "hon-en katedral" ("she-a cathedral") for Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. The outer form of "hon" is a giant, reclining 'Nana', whose internal environment is entered from between her legs. The piece elicited immense public reaction in magazines and newspapers throughout the world. The interactive quality of the "hon" combined with a continued fascination with fantastic types of architecture intensifies her resolve to see her own architectural dreams realized. During the construction of the "hon-en katedral," she met Swiss artist Rico Weber, who became an important assistant and collaborator for both de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely. During the 1960s, she also designed decors and costumes for two theatrical productions: a ballet by Roland Petit, and an adaptation of the Aristophanes play "Lysistrata."

In 1971, de Saint Phalle and Tinguely married.

The Tarot Garden[link]

Influenced by Gaudí´s Parc Güell in Barcelona, and the garden in Bomarzo, Saint Phalle decided that she wanted to make something similar; a monumental sculpture park created by a woman. In 1979, she acquired some land in Garavicchio, Tuscany, about 100 km north-west of Rome along the coast. The garden, called Giardino dei Tarocchi in Italian, contains sculptures of the symbols found on Tarot cards. The garden took many years, and a considerable sum of money, to complete. It opened in 1998, after more than 20 years of work.

Public works[link]

Niki de Saint Phalle's only American sculpture garden, Queen Califia's Magic Circle at Kit Carson Park, Escondido, California, 2011

On 17 November 2000 the artist became an honorary citizen of Hannover, Germany, and donated 300 pieces of her artwork to the Sprengel Museum.

Many of Niki de Saint Phalle's sculptures are large and some of them are exhibited in public places, including:

• Miles Davis statue outside of Hotel Negresco in Nice, France.
• Stravinsky Fountain (or Fontaine des automates) near the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1982)—also featuring works of Jean Tinguely
• La fountaine Château-Chinon, at Château-Chinon, Nièvre. Collaboration with Jean Tinguely
• L'Ange Protecteur in the Hall of the Zürich Train Station
• Nanas, along the Leibnizufer in Hannover (1974).
• Queen Califias Magic Circle, a sculpture garden in Kit Carson Park, Escondido, California^[6]
• Sun God (1983), a fanciful winged creature next to the Faculty Club on the campus of the University of California, San Diego as a part of the Stuart Collection of public art.
• La Lune, A sculpture located inside the Brea Mall in Brea, California.
• Nikigator, A sculpture on The Prado, Balboa Park in San Diego, California.
• #19 Baseball Player, a sculpture on loan to The San Diego Hall of Champions, Balboa Park, San Diego
• Coming Together, San Diego convention center^[7]
• Grotto at the Royal Herrenhäuser Gardens in Hannover, Germany^[8]
• Cyclop in Milly-La-Forêt, France—collaborative monumental sculpture with Jean Tinguely, a.o.^[9]
• Golem in Jerusalem^[10]
• Noah's Ark collaborative sculpture park with Swiss architect Mario Botta at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo^[11][12]
• Lebensretter-Brunnen / Lifesaver Fountain in Duisburg, Germany
• l’Oiseau de Feu Sur l’Arch / Firebird (literally, “Bird of Fire on an Arch”), in Bechtler Plaza in Charlotte, North Carolina.^[13]
• Miss Black Power in the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Hakone, Japan
• La Tempérance (1992) in Centre Hamilius, Luxembourg-Ville, Luxembourg (this work is currently in storage as the site is being demolished).^[14]

Literature[link]

• Niki de Saint Phalle, Pontus Hultén, ISBN 3-7757-0582-1. Published in connection with an exhibition in Bonn
• Traces: An Autobiography Remembering 1930–1949, Niki de Saint Phalle, ISBN 2-940033-43-9
• Harry & Me. The Family Years, Niki de Saint Phalle, ISBN 3-7165-1442-X
• Niki de Saint Phalle: Catalogue Raisonné: 1949–2000, Janica Parente a.o., ISBN 2-940033-48-X
• Niki De Saint Phalle: Monographie/Monograph, Michel de Grece a.o., ISBN 2-940033-63-3
• Niki's World: Niki De Saint Phalle, Ulrich Krempel, ISBN 3-7913-3068-3
• Niki de Saint Phalle. My art, my dreams, Carla Schultz-Hoffmann (Editor), ISBN 3-7913-2876-X
• AIDS: You can’t catch it holding hands, Niki de Saint Phalle, ISBN 0-932499-52-X
• Niki de Saint Phalle: Insider-Outsider. World Inspired Art, Niki de Saint Phalle, Martha Longenecker (Editor), ISBN 0-914155-10-5
• Niki De Saint Phalle: The Tarot Garden, Anna Mazzanti, ISBN 88-8158-167-1
• Niki de Saint Phalle: La Grotte, ISBN 3-7757-1276-3
• Jo Applin, "Alberto Burri and Niki de Saint Phalle: Relief Sculpture and Violence in the Sixties', Source: Notes in the History of Art, Winter 2008

Film[link]

• Daddy, 1973, written and directed by Saint Phalle and Peter Lorrimer Whitehead.
• Un rêve plus long que la nuit, 1971, written and directed by Saint Phalle.
• Who is the monster - You or me?, 1995, by Peter Schamoni in collaboration with Saint Phalle.

See also[link]

• Herrenhausen Gardens
• Kiryat Yovel
• Les Trois Grâces
• Nana on a Dolphin
• New Realism
• Stuart Collection
• Sun God (statue)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Niki de Saint Phalle

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Giardino dei Tarocchi

• Official site
• Official site of the artist's foundation, NCAF
• FemBiography Niki de Saint Phalle
• Niki Museum - Nasu, Japan
• Niki de Saint Phalle: Queen Califia - sculpture park in Escondido, California
• Fountain at Château-Chinon
• Stuart Collection, UCSD
• Niki in Artfacts
• The Tarot Garden
• The Mosaics of Niki de Saint Phalle
• Nike de Saint Phalle at JGM Galerie
• Guardian Angel - Zürich Hauptbahnhof
• Niki de Saint Phalle shop
• Niki works at Gallery Delaive
• The Tarot Garden - Giardino dei Tarocchi Feature Article
• Tir, exhibit at elles@centrepompidou, Paris, film about Tir, on the elles@centrepompidou's website

Bibliography[link]

• Jill Carrick, “Phallic Victories? Niki de Saint-Phalle’s Tirs”, Art History, vol 26, no. 5, November 2003, pp. 700–729.

Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely portrait by Lothar Wolleh
Born	(1925-05-22)22 May 1925 Fribourg, Switzerland
Died	30 August 1991(1991-08-30) (aged 66)
Nationality	Swiss
Field	Painting, Sculpture

The Tinguely Fountain in front of the Tinguely Museum in Basel

Tinguely's Heureka in Zürich-Seefeld (Zürichhorn)

Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 in Fribourg, Switzerland – 30 August 1991 in Bern) was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics. Tinguely's art satirized the mindless overproduction of material goods in advanced industrial society.

Tinguely grew up in Basel, but moved to France in 1952 with his first wife Swiss artist Eva Aeppli, to pursue a career in art. He belonged to the Parisian avantgarde in the mid-twentieth century and was one of the artists who signed the New Realist's manifesto (Nouveau réalisme) in 1960.

His best-known work, a self-destroying sculpture titled Homage to New York (1960), only partially self-destructed at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, although his later work, Study for an End of the World No. 2 (1962), detonated successfully in front of an audience gathered in the desert outside Las Vegas.

In Arthur Penn's Mickey One (1965) the mime-like Artist (Kamatari Fujiwara) with his self-destructive machine is an obvious Tinguely tribute.

In 1971, Tinguely married Niki de Saint Phalle.

Public works[link]

• Chaos I (1974), sculpture in The Commons, Columbus, Indiana, USA
• Le Cyclop outside of Milly-la-Forêt.
• The Stravinsky Fountain (fr: La Fontaine Stravinsky) near the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1983), a collaboration with Niki de Saint Phalle.
• Carnival Fountain (Fasnachtsbrunnen) (1977) in Basel.
• Tinguely Fountain (1977) in Basel.
• Lifesaver Fountain on Königstrasse in Duisburg, Germany, a collaboration with Niki de Saint Phalle
• Jo Siffert Fountain (commonly called Tinguely Fountain), Fribourg, Switzerland
• La Cascade, sculpture in the Carillon Building lobby, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
• Métamatic generative sculptures (1950s)

Noise music recordings[link]

• 1963 ‘Sounds of Sculpture’, 7”, Minami Gallery, Tokyo, Japan_[Tinguely’s sculptures recorded by avant-garde composer Toshi Ichiyanagi during Japanese exhibition]
• 1972 ‘Méta’, book+7_, Propyläen Verlag, Stockholm
• 1983 ‘‘Sculptures at The Tate Gallery, 1982_, Audio Arts cassette
• 1983 ‘Meta-Harmonie H’ incl. in ‘Meridians 2_ compmqenan ate a pie
• 2001 ‘Relief Meta-Mechanique Sonore I’ incl. in ‘A Diagnosis’ compilation, Revolver-Archiv Für Aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

See also[link]

• New Realism
• Rube Goldberg—Conceptual pioneer of excessively complex machinery

Further reading[link]

• chapter on Tinguely in Calvin Tomkins' The Bride and Her Bachelors.
• K. G. Pontus Hultén; Author of Jean Tinguely "Meta" (English translation published in 1975 by New York Graphic Society Ltd., Boston) Large hard cover, 519 Illustrations. Translated from German by Mary Whittall. Original German version published 1972.

External links[link]

• Jean Tinguely in SIK ISEA (Swiss Institute for Art Research)
• Tinguely-Museum in Basel
• Biography by the Tinguely Museum in Basel
• Art Cyclopaedia: Jean Tinguely
• http://www.art-public.com/cyclop/cyclop_g.htm
• videos: Tinguely's kinetic fountains in Basel and Paris
• Métamatic Research Initiative
• Lecture by Kaira Cabañas (PhD, Princeton University) Homage to New York: Jean Tinguely's Destructive Art delivered November 20, 2008 in New York City at Museum of Modern Art

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jean Tinguely