Phallic Victories By Niki De Saint Phalle Analysis

Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002 ) is a French artist often affiliated with the Nouveaux Réaliste group. Saint Phalle grew up traveling between New York City and France. Living in arguably the world’s largest art centres, Saint Phalle was introduced to art at a young age and took up painting. Between 1961 and 1964, Saint Phalle gained popularity through the performance of her series Tirs, which artists like Jean Tinguely, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg often collaborated on . Many of Saint Phalle’s works have implied sexual innuendos, phallic symbols, and messages about sexuality, most notably Tirs. As a female artist working in the 1960s, she adapted a persona and artistic style to set her apart from her male contemporaries, which
In the article “Phallic Victories? Niki de Saint-Phalle Tirs,” Jill Carrick argues that Saint Phalle uses “innovative and critical strategies associated with feminism, fetishism, and feminine masquerade” to confront “gender inequalities and societal violence.” Tirs takes on many different forms, “from blank white surfaces to thickly encrusted assemblages” where she buried bags of paint and various other materials beneath white plaster which she then would take a “. 22 long rifle” and shoot at. Using found objects under plaster, there is an element of chance in this series as Saint Phalle shoots randomly at the pieces. This element pulls on similar Dada approaches (specifically to Marcel Duchamp’s Stoppages) a movement that according Susan Hapgood in her article “Neo Dada,” Nouveaux Réalistes (like Neo-Dadaists) explored and imitated. Tirs has
In addition to the action of the work, the work itself holds many symbols. Carrick describes a particular piece included in the Tirs series (Shooting Gallery or Homage to the Postman Cheval) in which Saint Phalle includes “fairytale like imagery” such as a dragon, baby dolls and a snake. In addition to what Carrick considers a commentary on “nuclear war” and the innocence of the child, Shooting Gallery has implicit symbols of sexual violence. The snake in particular has a long tradition as a symbol for male destruction and eroticism, particularly in Christian texts (Genesis 3, the temptation by the snake and Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden). Carrick looks at snake imagery further when she compares Saint Phalle’s persona as a “modern- day Medusa” as she vengefully wields “wounded pythons” during her