Monday, January 23, 2012

I Implore You

Lately I have been infatuated with the lithographs of Niki de Saint Phalle. Not only was she a super babe but she made art that is infinitely appealing to me with the awkward figures and shapes, ornate cursive text, and a particular lightheartedness ensued by the tongue in cheek irony weaved into her sappy statements of devotion. (Worlds within worlds, anyone?) In other words she's one groovy chick. It's kind of hard to find good quality images of her work but my best Googling efforts came up with the few below.















11 comments:

  1. Celia BowJanuary 23, 2012 at 11:56 PM

    Her work is so pretty and dreamily detailed

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  2. colineJanuary 24, 2012 at 3:16 AM

    oh wow i really like this!

    http://munchmecat.blogspot.com/
    http://coline-rialan.blogspot.com/

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  3. JoannaJanuary 24, 2012 at 8:51 AM

    she sounded interesting so i looked her up to find out about her life and came up with these videos on youtube, have you seen them? Both have german narration over the top so it's a little hard to hear the english...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=airKl4cXtXA
    i like the bit when Niki and Jean tinguely are in the supermarket together, and then the bit when she talks about how she wants to be creative. she sounds crazed.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlP5xn0gyDk
    This one is about her life and is alarming at times.

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    1. MinnaJanuary 24, 2012 at 9:11 AM

      Omg! Thank you so much, those videos were SO interesting! The first one I loved seeing the flea markets and stuff.. "Niki look, the end of ze world!" "Boom." Totally though, she is seriously manic and crazed.. repeating herself and almost rocking back and forth... The second one is great too but totally disturbing! I didn't like the 'shooting men/shooting my mother' prose but at the end when she said "a war without victims" was good. She's pretty obsessed/infatuated with violence which irks me. It's interesting the work that came after those shooting paintings - it seems totally unrelated to me - I don't see violence in her sculptures or drawings at all, maybe she's trying for a more subtle approach, ha. When she's holding the gun she looks like a women from Godard's film 'Weekend'.

      Thanks so much for these links I just loved watching them!!! xoxo Minna

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  4. MichalJanuary 24, 2012 at 4:41 PM

    Hey Minna! I just looked up Nikki and found this slide that she designed:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MonsterS.jpg

    I used to live across the road from it! The official name for it is "The Golem" but it's so monstrously huge and bizarre that the locals renamed it "the monster". It's so famous, you can mention it to any cab driver and they know where to take you :) Thanks for your post, I didn't know she was the artist who designed it! XX

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    1. MinnaJanuary 25, 2012 at 10:22 PM

      Michal! Wow, that is totally amazing!!!!! That slide is pretty terrifying indeed but i'm totally into it. You used to live across from it! That is INCREDIBLE.!! xoxoxoxoxoxo Minna

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    2. MinnaJanuary 25, 2012 at 10:22 PM

      P.S "take me to... THE MONSTER"

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  5. UnknownJanuary 24, 2012 at 6:54 PM

    ooooh, i like the fonts and cartoony pictures, and the colours!

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  6. MinnaJanuary 25, 2012 at 10:23 PM

    Yes, so dreamy!!!!!

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  7. dewdroppinJanuary 26, 2012 at 10:36 PM

    Oh girl, thats great. I love Niki de Saint Phalle, Have you seen her book on AIDS awareness "you can't catch it holding hands"? my housemate had a copy that i really wanted to steal off him. Just so great. Love.

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