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10/10/2011

Niki de Saint Phalle / Andrew Gilbert & Lucy Stein

Gimpel Fils, London

Niki de Saint Phalle
Solo Show
11 October - 19 November 2011

Gimpel Fils is delighted to announce an exhibition of sculpture, drawings and prints by the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle. Including works from the 1960s through to the 1990s, this exhibition is a celebration of not only de Saint Phalle’s extraordinary career, but also her relationship with the gallery.

Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) was a rebellious, provocative artist whose work engaged with femininity, mythology, violence, personal anxiety and international political conflict. Although she did not undertake formal art-school training, from the mid-1950s she was part of the Parisian avant-garde and came to prominence alongside Pierre Restany and the Nouveaux Realistes, Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely. Amidst a world of supportive creativity she pursued a passionate and relentless assault against the constraints of conventional society, be they political, sexual, or aesthetic.

Throughout her career de Saint Phalle confronted the various roles of women in society: women in childbirth, malevolent mothers, dutiful daughters, witches, whores and goddesses. From the early 1960s she used assemblage and collage as a means of addressing the paradoxes of modern womanhood, often utilizing violence and grotesque humour. In works such as Chateau de Gilles de Rais, de Saint Phalle questioned the authority of the Church by juxtaposing kitsch objects such as dolls and plastic aeroplanes with Christian icons in a chaotic altarpiece. As with many of her works from this period, de Saint Phalle painted the assemblage a pure ‘virginal’ white in order to contaminate it. Placing bottles of paint within the work, she then fired a rifle at it. Black smears of paint drip down the clustered objects. The act of shooting, not only disturbs the sacred image, but is also suggestive of what de Saint Phalle believed to be the destructive effect of the church upon individuality and female agency. The act of destruction became an act of creation.

Obsessions and fears of childhood, emotional battles, and violence also permeate her 1973 film Daddy. The film merges autobiography with fantasy in a psychological investigation into the relationship between father and daughter. Including sexual scenes of incest, the film culminates with a reversal of power as the female character ridicules the father figure.

By the mid-1960s anger and frustration at patriarchal dominance gave way to matriarchal visions of productive power. The Nanas, boldly coloured rotund female figures, date from 1965 and can be regarded as positive manifestations of motherhood and fertility. Taking the Venus of Willendorf as a model for female creativity, the image of woman becomes one of power, joyously expressed through richly coloured patterned surfaces and voluptuous forms of female flesh. The skipping Nanas, pregnant Nanas, and the Nana riding a dolphin exhibited here all provide a sense of joy and evince the artist’s belief that all women are goddesses.

In 1979 Saint Phalle started work on the construction of a magical garden, based upon the characters within a deck of Tarot cards. Located in Italy, The Tarot Garden, opened to the public in 1998 and is a bold, imaginative world full of bright colours and fantasy. Hall of Justice included in this exhibition directly relates to one of the garden’s monumental sculptures.

Gimpel Fils first started working with Niki de Saint Phalle in 1979 and this mini-retrospective is our sixth exhibition of her work.

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Lucy Stein and Andrew Gilbert
The Lost Art of Convalescence
11 October - 19 November 2011

In The Lost Art of Convalescence Lucy Stein and Andrew Gilbert have joined their intuitive hallucinatory practices together at Gimpel Fils in a collaboration that they describe as a “hospital romance”.

The title has a double meaning: On the one hand, it can be read as a description of convalescence as an archaic and forgotten activity, expressing regret about the vanished art of being non-active. As a definable period of time during which a patient passes from the state of illness to the state of wellness, convalescence might now be seen as a period of unnecessary idleness. It also connotes an idea of luxury; a sedentary activity undertaken by the idle rich. Often found in the clean air of Switzerland or Austria, convalescent homes were attended in much the same, but clearly diminished, spirit of a grand tour.

In this collaborative exhibition, however, the title lends itself more readily to the regret of what is lost, or perhaps, what is failed to be achieved. Exhaustion can lead to inertia but by excavating and plundering the far reaches of their imaginations, colourful images and ideas are pulled by the artists from the depths. In The Lost Art of Convalescence like the lost gardens of Heligon, the extraordinary emerges from that which had been left abandoned. From the mind in illness, or repose, come dreamy, erotic and exotic paintings and drawings. This hospital romance will probably come to a savage ending, and is certainly a story deserving of a low budget film remake.

Andrew Gilbert identifies himself with the great men of history, his fantastical drawings meditating on the excesses of British Imperialism. Andrew presents himself as Emperor of Africa, Gordon of Khartoum and (the young and attractive) Michael Caine, butchered on the long road to Jerusalem or devoured on the plains of Afghanistan. Nineteenth century Orientalist imagery is re-imagined. Light watercolour sketches of arid landscapes and flowers along the roadside become beautiful dancing partners for Lucy Stein’s works. Lucy, in turn, has used an imagined convalescent home by the sea as a site for many of her recent paintings and drawings. The atmosphere is dreamy, ambiguous but also anxious and ripe with potentiality. In the gleeful spirit of collaboration her characters and vignettes have headed to tropical climes in order to commune with Andrew’s menagerie.

This exhibition will include paintings, drawings, sculptures, a vitrine with dead wasps, an ostrich egg and other assorted curiosities. The downstairs gallery is transformed into a cave full of the finest treasures and most exotic fruits, where birds screech with pain and pleasure, with open wings of colour.

Opening Tuesday 11th October 5-7pm

Gimpel Fils
30 Davies Street - London
Gallery hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5.30pm, Sat 11am - 4pm

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