Niki Charitable Art Foundation

If you'd like to know more about Le Cyclop, the massive sculpture built by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle in Milly-la-Forêt, France, here's your chance. Completed over the course of three decades with the help of fellow artists Arman, César, Marcel Duchamp, Larry Rivers, and JR Soto, the enormous structure is now the subject of a cycle of conferences exploring the images that inspired its construction and the artists who realized it.

The series, entitled "Le Cyclop, un aller retour vers le futur...," is being held in the Espace Culturel Paul Bédu at 8 bis rue Farnault, 91490 Milly-la-Forêt on 12 April, 3 May, and 31 May 2012 from 6:30 to 8:00pm. The sessions are being led by art historian Caroline Soyez-Petithomme, co-director of the art space La Salle de Bain in Lyon.

For more information about the conference series or the work itself, you can also visit the Le Cyclop web site.
 

This summer, Moderna Museet Malmö will be featuring "The Girl, the Monster and the Goddess," an exhibition of works by Niki de Saint Phalle:

"With unique imagination and creativity, [Saint Phalle] tirelessly delved into eternal and existential subjects such as power and powerlessness, destructive social patterns, gender, love and sexuality. Her prolific artistic output covers a range spanning from artist books and films to monumental sculpture projects. In both her art and her personal life, she reminds us of the inner force that can conquer fear and help us step out into life as ourselves.

"The exhibition with Niki de Saint Phalle launches a new series of presentations focusing on seminal artists that are especially relevant to the Moderna Museet collection. It is both pleasing and logical to start the series by featuring Niki de Saint Phalle, since her sculpture group Paradise and her internationally acclaimed exhibition SHE [Hon] have been highly important to the history of Moderna Museet, both in Sweden and internationally."

"The Girl, the Monster and the Goddess" will open 12 May and run through 9 September 2012. On the opening day of the exhibition, 12 May at 3 pm, curator Joa Ljungberg will give a guided tour of the exhibition (in Swedish). Read more.

Pictured above: Niki de Saint Phalle, "L'accouchement rose," 1964. © 2012 Niki Charitable Art Foundation.
 

Here is Elsewhere gallery in West Hollywood is presenting "From Then to Now," the first US show of photographer Laurent Condominas, an artist who is both part of Niki de Saint Phalle's family and the creator of many of the best known photos of Niki and her work. His oeuvre is described thus by La Lettre de la Photographie:

"His photos focus notably on his family and friends, a 'Band of Outsiders' which would become part of the 1970s artistic avant-garde. A 'poetry of everyday life' appears in this work, which takes small details of banal situations and elevates them into political and sometimes philosophical comments. Condominas' use of light and color, his attention to detail, and his sense of the absurd also draw a parallel with the California avant-garde of the same time. Hence his work captures the freshness and innocence which, at the time, symbolized youth culture. In a more nostalgic light, they ultimately reveal the end of an era, the turning point when consumerism and normality took over."

Condominas figured in the 1960s French avant-garde scene, having been part of the Zanzibar Films group known as the "Dandies of May '68," as well as appearing in films from Andy Warhol's Factory group. His work has been published in Elle, Vogue, The Los Angeles Times, Art in America, and TATE and has been shown internationally at Tokyo's Space Nikki, Musée de Las Palmas, and many other museums.

"From Then to Now" is at HiE in the Pacific Design Center at 8687 Melrose Avenue, Suite B231 (Blue Building, Second Floor) in West Hollywood. For more information, visit the HiE web site or call +1.310.904.8966.

Pictured above: Laurent Condominas, "Quatre générations," 1973 (Niki de Saint Phalle, center, with her mother Jeanne Jacqueline, her daughter Laura, and her grand-daughter Bloum).
 

Chaumont-sur-Marne, a town of 30,000 in eastern France, is the first stop of the new Pompidou Mobile, a traveling gallery of modern and contemporary art conceived by Alain Seban, current director of the Pompidou Center in Paris.

Curator Emma Lavigne was chosen to put together "La Couleur," the Pompidou Mobile's first show, which opened in Chaumont in mid-October and runs there until 15 January. Inside the traveling exhibition's tents are 14 masterpieces from the Paris museum's permanent collection. Artists include modern masters — Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Léger, Alexander Calder, and Niki de Saint Phalle — and a sprinkling of contemporary artists including Olafur Eliasson and Bruce Nauman. Entrance to the museum is free, a rarity in France. The museum will next set up camp on its tour of France early next year in Cambrai, then heads to Boulogne-sur-Mer in May. Read more.