拍品专文
La Marieé is certainly the rarest and most important work by Niki de Saint-Phalle ever to come on the auction market. Executed in 1963, its haunting and macabre presence, in direct conflict to the traditional notion of the blushing virgin bride, is a summation of the artist's ideas on womanhood and an expression of her own position in society.
To many young women in the early 1960s, the high-point of their existence was their wedding day. The traditional wedding photograph of the joyous bride, testified to a woman who has entrusted her future to her husband, having vowed to honour and obey him in her role as mother and home-maker. La Marieé is an expression of the pain and guilt faced by a woman in that era should she decide to reject these same ideals and responsibilities.
This was the fate chosen by the artist herself. Born into an upper class American environment, Niki de Saint-Phalle found herself married with two children by her early twenties. Painfully conscious of the contradiction between her desire for independence and the sham of her everyday reality, she suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised. Here she began to paint and her longing to be an artist helped her reconcile her situation. She abandoned her husband and children and set about venting her aggression by making works which were inherently threatening.
Between 1963-64, Niki de Saint-Phalle worked on a series of reliefs and sculptures, which depicted brides, women in labour, mothers, whores and witches. "I had a lot of guilt to get out. One day I would do something unpardonable. The very worst thing a woman can do. I would abandon my children for my work... A woman could be queen bee in the home but that was it... I wanted the outside world to be mine also... I would not accept the boundaries handed down generation after generation by a long tradition never questioned." (Niki de Saint-Phalle in A Letter to Pontus Hulten published in: Niki de Saint Phalle, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn 1992, pp. 147-149)
La Marieé takes the traditional image of the bride and turns her into a monster. She is built up from toys and other small plastic objects, which, for the artist, possessed a crudeness and uselessness, as well as a seductive charm. De Saint-Phalle found a certain joy in affixing them in a gentle fashion to the real wedding dress. "Lyrical rhythms are created little by little between the objects as they are nicely put to bed in the plaster that has become as gentle as whipped cream." (Pontus Hulten in: Niki de Saint-Phalle, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn 1992, p. 14).
As the brides came into being, Niki de Saint-Phalle began to discover a magic and mystery in monumental forms. La Marieé has the presence of a gigantic earth-goddess or primal fertility deity. Even though she was rebelling against the sacred notion of feminity within marriage, the artist wanted to rejoice in the truly primordial powers of womankind.
To many young women in the early 1960s, the high-point of their existence was their wedding day. The traditional wedding photograph of the joyous bride, testified to a woman who has entrusted her future to her husband, having vowed to honour and obey him in her role as mother and home-maker. La Marieé is an expression of the pain and guilt faced by a woman in that era should she decide to reject these same ideals and responsibilities.
This was the fate chosen by the artist herself. Born into an upper class American environment, Niki de Saint-Phalle found herself married with two children by her early twenties. Painfully conscious of the contradiction between her desire for independence and the sham of her everyday reality, she suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised. Here she began to paint and her longing to be an artist helped her reconcile her situation. She abandoned her husband and children and set about venting her aggression by making works which were inherently threatening.
Between 1963-64, Niki de Saint-Phalle worked on a series of reliefs and sculptures, which depicted brides, women in labour, mothers, whores and witches. "I had a lot of guilt to get out. One day I would do something unpardonable. The very worst thing a woman can do. I would abandon my children for my work... A woman could be queen bee in the home but that was it... I wanted the outside world to be mine also... I would not accept the boundaries handed down generation after generation by a long tradition never questioned." (Niki de Saint-Phalle in A Letter to Pontus Hulten published in: Niki de Saint Phalle, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn 1992, pp. 147-149)
La Marieé takes the traditional image of the bride and turns her into a monster. She is built up from toys and other small plastic objects, which, for the artist, possessed a crudeness and uselessness, as well as a seductive charm. De Saint-Phalle found a certain joy in affixing them in a gentle fashion to the real wedding dress. "Lyrical rhythms are created little by little between the objects as they are nicely put to bed in the plaster that has become as gentle as whipped cream." (Pontus Hulten in: Niki de Saint-Phalle, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn 1992, p. 14).
As the brides came into being, Niki de Saint-Phalle began to discover a magic and mystery in monumental forms. La Marieé has the presence of a gigantic earth-goddess or primal fertility deity. Even though she was rebelling against the sacred notion of feminity within marriage, the artist wanted to rejoice in the truly primordial powers of womankind.