Niki de Saint Phalle is one of the most well known artists of her generation. The visionary outsider developed a distinctive design vocabulary and created an oeuvre as unconventional as it is multifaceted. The Nanas—her colorful, large-format female figures—laid the foundation for her international success and are still regarded as her trademark. But the self-taught artist’s creative spectrum is much broader, and her oeuvre is more subversive and critical of society than is widely assumed.

In an extensive exhibition, the SCHIRN will shed light on the wide-ranging work of this extraordinary artist. Niki de Saint Phalle developed her art based on her processing of very personal emotions and on a radically feminist position. She took up social and political topics, criticized institutions and role models, and with her art addressed public discourses that still have relevance today. Her legendary Shooting Pictures were created during provocative performances, and her impressive installations in public space bear witness to the transformative impact of her art, which developed through painting, drawing, assemblages, actions, as well as in theater, film, and architecture.

An exhibition in cooperation with the Kunsthaus Zürich