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Niki de Saint Phalle's Queen Califia's Magical Circle
The Only American Sculpture Garden by this Internationally-Acclaimed Artist
Califia's Magical Circle, the only American sculpture garden created by renowned French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle, has opened in Escondido's Iris Sankey Arboretum in Kit Carson Park. The garden promises to become an instantaneous cultural landmark for the San Diego region -- a place where visitors can roam at will, play, touch, dream, and "find inspiration in Saint Phalle's extraordinary homage to California's mythic and historic origins and its cultural diversity," said Susan Pollack, who manages Escondido's Public Art Program.
Niki de Saint Phalle was born in 1930 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, and raised in New York City. She began painting in 1948, moved four years later to Europe (Nice, Paris, and Mallorca), and first came to international prominence in 1961 as a member of the influential "New Realists," a group that also included Christo, Yves Klein, and Jean Tinguely (her frequent collaborator whom she married in 1971). Today, she is best known for her oversized, voluptuous female figures, the Nanas, which can be seen in cities and museums around the world. Among her large-scale installations are the Stravinsky Fountain near the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1983), the Tarot Garden at Garavicchio in southern Tuscany (which was entirely financed by the artist and opened after twenty-four years of work in 1998), and the Grotto in Hannover's Royal Herrenhausen Garden (2003).
A Gift for Southern California and Its Children:
Saint Phalle continued living near Paris until 1994 when, for reasons of poor health (brought about by exposure to toxic fumes from polyester materials used in her early sculptures), she moved to La Jolla, California. "California has been a rebirth for my soul and an earthquake for my eyes -- sea, desert, mountains, wide open sky, brilliance of light and vastness of space," she once remarked. "I have embraced another way of life, and have let my discovery of this landscape manifest itself in my work."
"Queen Califia's Magical Circle is my grandmother's gift to the region," said Bloum Cardenas, a Bay Area artist and trustee of the newly established Niki Charitable Art Foundation. "Niki's first significant architectural project was The Bird's Dream and she called it that because her personal symbol was the eagle. This garden, then, is the final realization of the bird's dream, Niki's dream, to create a wonderful legacy for a place she dearly loved."
The garden is Saint Phalle's last major project and stands as one of only four large-scale sculptural environments designed and built by the artist and her studio. The others are the Tarot Garden, Noah's Ark in Jerusalem, Israel (completed in 2001 in collaboration with Swiss architect Mario Botta), and Hannover's Grotto.
Always interested in expanding the audience for contemporary art, Queen Califia is a place for families to gather, play, and engage with a visually rich world of ideas, symbols, and forms. "My first really big piece for kids was the Golem [completed in 1970 in Jerusalem] and three generations know and love it. Here [in Escondido], you can also touch the sculptures," Saint Phalle said in one of her last interviews. "They feel nice and you won't harm them. You can be a part of them … it's like a marriage between the sculptures and the child or adult. Maybe it brings out the child in adults, too."
Queen Califia's Magical Circle took nearly four years to plan and execute and Saint Phalle remained totally immersed in the project until just before her death at the age of 71 in May 2002. Foundation trustees Bloum Cardenas, Marcelo Zitelli, and Dave Stevenson have overseen the garden's final staging. They have worked closely with Susan Pollack and Don Anderson, Escondido's Director of Community Services, to ensure that the artist's vision is fully realized, even in the smallest details. |