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Niki de Saint Phalle at the Tarot Garden
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Niki In the garden
The Next “Chihuly” is in Full Bloom
By Jennifer Maciejewski
When Mary Pat Matheson came aboard as the executive director of the Atlanta Botanical Garden in July 2002, she brought with her not only 20 years of combined horticultural and management experience, but also a love for art. Although the Garden had previously focused solely on plants, Matheson was eager to merge art and nature, mirroring a centuries-old tradition in Europe and Asia.
“Botanical gardens in the past in the United States have had a much more narrow focus on gardeners, and I really believe that we are for the entire community,” Matheson explained. “I think it’s so refreshing to integrate different ideas, whether it’s artistic sculptures or creative exhibitions. The exhibits bring people [to the Garden], and they create wonderful change, so each year you can look forward to something new and surprising. It’s a marriage that’s absolutely perfect.”
Widespread Whimsy
Blending the works of internationally renowned artists with the Garden’s lush plants has proven to be a highly successful approach. In 2004, the enormously popular “Chihuly in the Garden” exhibition, which featured more than 50 glass sculptures from artist Dale Chihuly, drew 425,000 visitors, 30 percent of them from another region, and contributed to a record-high number of memberships. If the phenomenal turnout for Chihuly is any indication, “Niki in the Garden,” which features 35 enormous, playful sculptures from artist Niki de Saint Phalle, is destined for success. “The neat thing about Chihuly is we found people would come back multiple times,” Matheson noted. “If you saw it once and a family member or friend came into town, you brought them back. We expect that Niki will be the same way.”
For Matheson, the decision to host an exhibition of Saint Phalle’s work at the Garden was simple. “As soon as I saw her work and learned that one of her life’s goals was to create her sculpture in a garden setting, I just thought, ‘This is so perfect.’ Niki has two permanent installations that are in gardens– the Tarot Garden in Tuscany, Italy, and Queen Califia’s Magical Circle in Escondido, Calif. – and I loved the whimsical, child-like nature of her work.”
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Niki de Saint Phalle Guardian Lion 2000
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A Natural Fascination
A self-taught artist, Saint Phalle dabbled in an enormous variety of artistic mediums from painting and sculpture to film and writing, even designing and selling her own line of perfume to fund her work. No material was out of bounds, and her fascination with nature, animals and mythology supplied an endless array of subject matter for her to explore. Best known for her Nanas (French for “babes” or “chicks”), the sculptures depict oversized, often dancing, powerful women celebrating life. After creating models of her sculptures, Saint Phalle assembled an international team of assistants to help bring them to life, an essential component due to the enormous scale of her works, which often reach over 18 feet high and span more than 25 feet in length.
Always a curious person, Saint Phalle traveled extensively throughout Asia, Africa and Europe to examine centuries of art firsthand, gleaning inspiration for her own work along the way. In fact, Saint Phalle once noted that a visit to Park Guell of Gaudi in Barcelona in 1955 planted the seed for her lifelong obsession: creating a “Garden of Joy. A little corner of Paradise. A meeting place between man and nature.”
Though it took more than 20 years for her to begin working on her “Garden of Joy” and another 20 years to finish it, the Tarot Garden, was her fantasy garden. Saint Phalle based the sculpture garden on interpretations of the tarot card symbols’ mystic meanings, energies and associations. When rheumatoid arthritis left her barely able to walk or use her hands, she pushed herself to keep going, even living inside the sculpture of “The Empress” Tarot card for five years.
In the mid-1990s, Saint Phalle moved to California, where she lived until her death in 2002. During that time, two of her major works included Noah's Ark, a collection of 22 animal sculptures for the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem, Israel, and Queen Califia’s Magical Circle, a sculpture garden for the Sankey Arboretum in Kit Carson Park in Escondido, Calif. Queen Califia, Saint Phalle’s first American garden and her last major project, draws from interpretations of early California history, myth and legend; Native-American and Meso-American culture; and the study of indigenous plants and wildlife. Though she died before its completion, her international staff oversaw the final construction of her work, ensuring that it would have met her expectations.
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Niki de Saint Phalle oiseau de Feu sur l' Arche 1993
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Art You Can Touch
“The Tarot Garden and Queen Califia are gardens that she created as a whole, so they’re like one piece even though they have many sculptures in them,” explained Bloum Cardenas, Saint Phalle’s granddaughter and trustee of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation. “In the Atlanta Botanical Garden, it’s an experience of Niki’s work over a big lapse of time. It’s a hint to the Tarot Garden, Queen Califia or the work she has in Jerusalem; it’s not one piece of art. It’s truly an exhibition, but it’s an outdoor exhibition in the Garden. Internationally heralded as uniquely accessible, many of Saint Phalle’s sculptures of enormous animals, mythical figures, totems, sports heroes and Nanas invite sitting, climbing or crawling through secret passages. Plus, they’re often embellished with mirrors, glass, semi-precious stones and ceramic mosaics. “There’s a lot of big tactile experience,” Cardenas asserted. “So rarely can you actually touch artwork, that when you can, you can’t stop. She liked for people to have an intimate relationship with her work.”
Exposure to the elements was certainly a concern, but scale ultimately determined which 35 of Saint Phalle’s sculptures would be on display at the Garden. “We wanted works that worked nicely in different parts of the Garden,” Matheson explained. “It’s a team effort. We work with the people from the foundation who have a good sense of where her work might work nicely and then together – we, myself and our exhibits manager – place the pieces.”
For instance, two 25-foot guardian lions flank the front of the conservatory on the lawn. The area next to the lawn, the former site of the “Locomotion in the Garden” exhibit, features the “Three Graces Fountain,” a group of Nanas that spout water; “The Skull,” an enormous piece that is lined on the inside with a mosaic; and “Nikigator,” a huge mosaic alligator. Totems serve as a balance to the perennial garden’s long, horizontal nature. One Nana, whose body is so large that you can climb into her, resides in what was once the herb garden, surrounded by big, billowy tropical plants.
“The botanical garden is an excellent setting for sculpture,” observed Sandy Pon of Marietta. “The gardens themselves are beautiful works of art that, in my opinion, are much more interesting ‘rooms’ to work with than large rooms of blank walls. Even if you're not interested in gardens and plants, it's simply a pleasant, pretty, fairly quiet place to spend some unrushed time, especially at twilight when the skyline is lit. Plus, the Garden’s outside spaces are much more suited for kids [and adults] to alternate between periods of physical, playful energy and quiet rest and contemplation.”
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Niki de Saint Phalle Nana on a dolphin, 1998
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Niki Nights
Saint Phalle once described her artistic process as a “work in the darkness of a secret tunnel, always searching for the sun, hiding from the moon, and paying homage to the stars.” Since her extensive use of mosaic makes her sculptures dance in every type of light, “Niki Nights” promises to bring a new dimension to the exhibition.
Every Thursday starting in May, the exhibit will remain open until 9 at night. During “Niki Nights,” visitors can sip cocktails while strolling through the Garden to admire Saint Phalle’s sculptures, which are specially lit for the event. “The lights refract off her mosaic and glass,” Matheson explained. “It takes on a whole different aura and essence when you have light on it. It’s magical; it’s really a wonderful time to be in the Garden.”
In addition, this month features the Garden’s first “Rare Plant Auction” on May 10 and marks the return of the “Gardens for Connoisseurs Tour,” which will be held on Mother’s Day Weekend, May 13 and 14. During the tour, 10 private gardens, from intimate cottage gardens to large formal gardens, open their doors to the public. Coincidentally, one of the gardens on the tour this year is the Chastain Park sculpture garden of collectors Deborah Levy and Bert Russo, which includes a cast Arabian filly, more than 15 Otterness bronzes, and a forest of Chihuly glass on the balcony.
Planting Improvements
In order to keep up with demand, the Garden is in the middle of a $45-million capital campaign, which will fund a variety of improvements, including a new parking facility, a visitor’s center, Southern Seasons Garden, Edible Garden and a 900-foot floating canapé walk through the woodland that will be the largest and only one like it in the United States.
“The canapé walk will really become a new icon for the city of Atlanta,” Matheson noted. “The canapé walk is anywhere from 20 to 45
feet off the ground, and it’s held up much like a suspension bridge, so it gives you the sense that it’s floating through the trees. It will give you an opportunity to see the gardens below, as well as be up in the leaves, and at night, it will be wonderful when all the tree frogs are awake and the lightning bugs are out. It’s really a great design. We hope to break ground next year; it’s going to be amazing.”
For More Information
Atlanta Botanical Garden
1345 Piedmont Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30309
404-876-5859
www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org
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