VANITAS

NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE

  • 5 October 2019 - 12 January 2020

Curated by Giorgia Salerno

For the 6th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Mosaic in Ravenna, the MAR holds a work of the Franco-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle for the first time in Ravenna. The project, curated by Giorgia Salerno, is a tribute to the Ravenna’s mosaic tradition through a contemporary interpretation, an approach that has become increasingly stabilized in the museum’s choices about the exhibition with the aim at expanding relations with international cultural institutions and foundations.

Vanitas is the title of the project that displays a large mosaic sculpture depicting a skull, with mirrored glazed tiles and palladium leaves, made by Niki de Saint Phalle in 1988.                                             In the exhibited work, Tête de Mort I, Niki de Saint Phalle undervalued the drama of death through the sculpture’s large size and, ironically, affirms the overcoming of the end with the continuity of life.

The mirrored tiles reflect the observer’s image, forcing a direct comparison with the symbol of life’s end, as a memento mori, while at the same time restoring the multiplicity of human identity. Refractions of personality that recompose themselves to form a vision as a whole.

The work, specifically chosen for Ravenna, the city of mosaics and mausoleums, clearly refers to the iconography of vanitas and to a theme, the victory of eternal life over death, that is particularly rapresentative of the territory. The city funerary monuments, such as the Mausoleum of Theodoric, the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, the funeral sculpture of Guidarello Guidarelli to Dante’s Tomb, are examples of how life, culture and historical testimonies have trumphed over earthly death.

Niki de Saint Phalle deals with the iconography of the skull and evockes the writing style of ancient works, by not only choosing the mosaic technique but also by using the reflective power of the mirror, an inevitable reference to Byzantine mosaic art of Ravenna, which is characterized primarily by the lyric of light, thanks to the use of vitreous paste and pure gold tiles. The works transcend towards an otherworldly dimension (towards the divine) just as Tête de Mort I that moves beyond earthly nature to transmute into eternal life.

 

Niki de Saint PhalleTête de mort I, 1988, ©NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION.  All rights reserved. Collection  Niki Charitable Art Foundation, Santee

 

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