The Kinetic Force of Art World Couple Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely Comes to Life in Somerset

We considered Hauser & Wirth in Menorca, but the team insisted on Somerset—somewhere I had never been! But I trusted the professionals. When I arrived, I was shocked at how on point it was. Jean and Niki moved out of the city early on and worked in barns. They loved the rural life. It felt very beautifully British, but also meant to be.
Jean Tinguely, La Grande Tête (The Big Head), 1988.
Photo: Ken Adlard, courtesy of Niki Charitable Art Foundation and Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Ken Adlard, courtesy of the artists and Hauser & Wirth
I had such a visceral reaction to seeing the exhibition. The gorgeous gardens, the curation. You start with Tinguely's moving kinetic machines, then you move to Niki's stark and solemn shooting pictures, then you look out the window and see the Nana sculptures in the gardens.
I think it's beautifully curated. I'm thankful this is happening right now, before the big exhibition in Paris, where we see Tinguely, Niki, Pontus Hultén…all artistic friends. Then we're opening an exhibition for Jean's centennial in Geneva. You see the real scope of both of their work. In Somerset, we have their very intimate correspondence on display. You see their love, humor, and generosity. In the Somerset gardens, they get the fountains on and children run through the water with the Nanas. I was fortunate enough to be a kid around Niki and Jean, so I truly got to understand the magic of their work. I think it's wonderful to get people young to understand art, and see that art is a part of life.
How did you even begin to distill the scope of their work? For Niki in particular—from the shooting paintings to the Nanas—the range in form and storytelling is so vast.
I think it's really always important to tell stories, or at least to create a path so that people can create their own stories. We show all these different creative languages that they used both together and separately—from imagery to cinema, to moving machines, and the fountain. I think it's wonderful to blur the boundaries between public and private art in this exhibition, and that's actually very rare. And while this show is so much about joy and humor and providing a bit of a solace from the darkness of the world, the heavy subjects are there—but in a poetic way.
Installation view.
Photo: Ken Adlard, courtesy of the artists and Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Courtesy Hauser & With and the artists
I think that's the beauty of their work: there are converging and contradicting ideas. I love that you can see how intensely they collaborated, but also the real delineations between them. You would maybe think, as a couple, that they would have mirrored each other more. Instead, they have a singular sense of artistic identity.

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