Missouri Botanical Garden - Niki 2008 Missouri Botanical Garden

On Guide: n12 Sculpture: Guardian Lions Location: Bottle Brush Buckeyes
By making gay, joyous sculpture maybe Im saying, Look, the world is awful but it is also great. So lets enjoy its greatness. My work is about color, the changing of colors for dreams and emotionsred, blue, yellow, green, purple. And its about roundness and the curves of nature. My work gives me hope, enthusiasm, structure. My work is my REAL DIARY.Niki de Saint Phalle

On Guide: n6 Sculpture: Large Yelling Man Totem Location: Gladney Rose Garden
Nikis Totems reveal her exploration of Native American culture and traditions. She always admired American Indian totems and felt they contained a spiritually protective, mysterious glow. She consulted Native American experts and invited them to monitor their ritualistic installation in her magical Queen Califias circle sculpture garden in California.

These sculptures are based on the structure, symbolism and spiritual art of Native American totem poles. They represent the rich textures as well as the pastel palette of Nikis last Californian mosaic style. Notice how they are covered in an extraordinary variety of materials.

While it may be hard to decode the meanings of the Totems, Niki subjects the creatures of the lower tiers to the protective or destructive power of the animals on the top. On Grand Step Totem, a Nana-like mother and her child are placed under a deity represented by a mask.

On Guide: n21 Sculpture: Star Fountain Location: Climatron
Two sculptures in this exhibitionStar Fountain and Arbres Serpent (n2)are closely related to Nikis Tarot Garden.

In the 1970s, inspired by the artist Gauds park in Barcelona, Niki dreamed of creating a sculpture garden based on the cards of the Tarot deck used by fortune tellers. An Italian patron offered her land in southern Tuscany, where she completed her Tarot Garden in 1998, just four years before she died. The project took 20 years. It is among the permanent sculpture gardens she created. The others are Queen Califias Magical Circle in Escondido, California, and Golem and Noahs Ark, both in Jerusalem.

Arbres Serpent, combining plant and animal life into one, is based symbolically on the Tree of Life that housed the card of the Hung Man. It was designed to be a complex fountain. The snake appeared in her early images of femininity. In the 1980s, she adopted serpents as her signature motif for a perfume she produced to finance the Tarot Garden.

Star Fountain is not only a monumental woman but also symbolic of the tarot card deck, with its iconic flowing water, stars, and planets. According to Niki, the star represented the wholeness of being, lost in modern civilization, as well as renewal.

On Guide: n23 Sculpture: Buddha Location: Outside Shoenberg Temperate House
Most of Nikis sculptures are made of polyurethane foam, some with a steel structure underneath. They are covered with polyester, before the mosaic pieces are attached with silicon or epoxy. The mosaic pieces are glass, mirrors, ceramic tiles and polished stones that Niki called M&M's.

Sadly, Nikis art proved to be detrimental to her health. In the late 1960s, she began covering her sculptures with polyester paint to make them durable outdoors. The toxic fumes from the polyester resin and other plastic materials she used severely damaged her lungs, and caused recurrent health problems. Niki began making her own ceramics for the mosaics in her Tarot Garden project in Tuscany. Mosaics allowed her to create more widely varied, durable and decorative surfaces. For health reasons, she moved to La Jolla, California, near San Diego, in 1994. She continued to create art until her death in 2002 at the age of 71.

On Guide: n17 Sculpture: Nikigator Location: Near Kemper Center
My name is Laura Gabriela, and Im Nikis daughter. I remember Niki as the wise Nikigator.

Niki was undaunted by opposition, she wasnt afraid of being attacked. On the contrary she took it all as a response and it stimulated her and it gave fuel to her fire and she knew she that was on the right track and she had more to do and it just kept her going.

As a kid I was a little you know scared sometimes because these artists bring things that are new and there is a lot of hostility that shows up sometimes but I understand that she knew how to play the game of life and she knew how to respond creatively and she never lost her focus and she used the opposition to keep going and Im still learning from that.

On Guide: n6 Sculpture: Bird Head Totem Location: Gladney Rose Garden
My name is Marcelo Zitelli, I worked with Niki the last 16 years of her life and now I am a trustee of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation.

I met Niki in 1987 and I found a very open and charming person. Even if I was shy she talked to my like an equal, someone who was able to work directly with her. Right away we have a very good relationship and our relationship was based in our love of theatre. She wanted to be an actress when she was very young and I too was in theatre and Nikis work is always about telling a story.

When I met her she was very upset about one sculpture that she wanted to do but the studio that she normally work with was unavailable. I told her I was willing to try and Niki say ok, you have a month to do the sculpture and I finished in 10 days, so Niki said to quit working on my other project.

When began working together in the studio Niki needed to change the way she worked, which was to create a small model then send to a studio to be enlarged. Instead of sending the works someplace else, we built medium and large sized sculptures together in the studio.

Niki was always concerned about the people who needed more attention in society like women, Native Americans and African Americans, that why in her work, she was always trying to bring justice to those who were not recognized by the powerful member of the society.

We see this in her work with the Black Heroes. This body of her work was born from an article in the New York Times that downplayed the importance of black jazz musicians. Niki was angry about that. Thats how Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis came to be represented in her art.