Niki de Saint Phalle... says it like it is

Sometimes it is so strange that things come up when they do. I have been given the generous opportunity to work with Artsadmin this year to develop new work using the "shooting paintings" of Niki de Saint Phalle as starting point for a series of live works. Then I get an email letting me know that the Tate Liverpool, is presenting a retrospective of her work. So I cleared a space in my life to get up to see the show last Thursday. Last year I was reintroduced to Niki de Saint Phalle's work by an ex student from Newport School of Art Media and Design in Wales - Sofia Wilén.

I had seen "Daddy" before on video but it was great to sit through the whole thing in the gallery. I wonder if Kubrick had seen the film when he made Eyes Wide Shut ?

The aspect of Nikki de Saint Phalle’s work that calls out strongly to me is her strident, emphatic process of telling like it is (or was). She rushes into the dark side of human relations and pulls at the underlying evil and love. She is not a "demonic provocateur" as Jonathan Jones calls her in the Guardian. Her "shooting paintings" started as a representation of her anger at a lover. She threw darts at his portrait in the form of St Sebastian and progressed to a more generalised anger at church and state and in particular colonial imperialism. She was making clear links between incest on a personal level and institutionalised infantalisation of women and non-western peoples. An angry woman is prone to becoming a pariah and there are few examples of women who have successfully expressed this anger in Modern or Contemporary Art.

To be emphatic, strident and overt are strategies most prone to disaster in contemporary arts practice. This kind of work has always been the stuff that gets me going... SAY IT LIKE IT IS!!!

The work above was part of an exhibition I had at 200 Gertrude st Gallery, Melbourne in 1994. I asked Sydney CID to shoot at the work in their underground firing range in Surry Hills. The work which was made of collage and drawing applied to an old formica table top, was part of a series of works called Eat me Babe

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Eyes Looking at You

a performance in development

above: costume designs for Eyes Looking at You

Score
1 male camera operator/collaborator
1 male “art gallery black” semi formal costume
1 box of ripe tomatoes
1 set of plastic tie cuffs
1 ring hook attached to gallery wall
1 female performer
1 female “tomato hoody” costume
20 audience members signed up earlier in the evening
20 costumes made from polyurethane busts with long black robes beneath.
Audience of 50+

Duration: five minutes plus up to one hour mingling with the evening audience prior to commencement.

Method:

Camera operator-collaborator Kim Fielding mingles with the crowd acting as a hyperactive paparazzi. Up to twenty audience members are signed up to wear the costumes above and given an instruction sheet - Deej Fabyc wearing a 'tomato hoodie' costume walks into the foyer area of the space and gives tomatoes to the costumed audience members. They are then organised into a semi circle. Fabyc stands in front of them and lies on the floor in sacfificial pose raising the expectation that the tomatoes will be thrown at her. Kim rushes in and takes numerous intimate close ups of Fabyc's prone figure. Fabyc's arm suddenly shoots out and grabs the camera. Raising herself up, she wrestles with Fielding having placed the camera to one side. One of the costumed audience/participants comes forward and safeguards the camera.

Meanwhile Fabyc succeeds in zip-tying Fielding to a hook on the wall attaching a pig mask to his face. Fabyc stands back and recites a list of world leaders. As each name is called out a tomato is hurled at Fielding. This continues until the tomatoes are finished. At which point Fielding is cut free and dragged away. Finis