On the French Riviera in the late 1960s, they were the joyous dream of the turbulent art that was disrupting the classical canons with the wildest imagination of Nouveau Realisme and Pop Art. Niki De Saint Phalle's Nanas announced to me, a restless 20-something, a new era that would change many things, particularly the ethics and aesthetics of the world around us. They reminded me of Jean Dubuffet's large paper and styrofoam sculptures (on view at Mudec from October 12 to February 16) that I had seen in Paris, equally irreverent and impulsive but less ironic that Flavio Lucchini - far more knowledgeable about art than I was - loved and whose meaning he explained to me.
Later, Niki's colorful dolls dancing on water along with her husband Jean Tinguely's self-propelled toys in the little square next to the Parisian Centre Pompidou became a cheerful must-see for us whenever we went to see an exhibition at that extraordinary museum. The little inflatable Nana I bought at Mamac, the contemporary art museum in Nice that chronicles its fantastical world with a large number of works, was the first accessible trophy of an art that seduced me when I could not afford more.
That is why I am happy to find Niki again at Mudec with her acrobatic elegant playful feminists and feminine dolls, but also traces of her life, her ghosts, her last Totems, in an exciting exhibition that will run until February 16.
A bit like unexpectedly meeting an old friend and rediscovering her as alive and quivering as then because for me her works have not lost an ounce of fascination and seeing them again fills me with pleasure. I am sure they will make you quiver and enjoy them too.
By the way, since Mudec is on Via Tortona a stone's throw from Superstudio, also go inside No. 27 to visit FLA, Flavio Lucchini's fashion-art museum. Another spectacular stop that speaks of different beauty.
“Niki de Saint Phalle,” Mudec, Via Tortona 56 Milan - October 5 through February 16 - tickets available at https://www.mudec.it/niki-de-saint-phalle/