Dimensions: object: 1430 x 780 x 81 mm
Copyright: © The estate of Niki de Saint Phalle | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: At first glance, there's something viscerally unsettling about this piece; it's raw and feels almost wounded. Editor: This is Niki de Saint Phalle's "Shooting Picture," currently held at the Tate Modern. Saint Phalle was born in 1930 and passed in 2002. Note the dimensions, about 143 cm by 78 cm. Curator: Shooting Picture? That title makes perfect sense now, considering the dripping paint and the way the white base seems to have been...violated, maybe? Editor: Exactly. These works were created through performative acts, where Saint Phalle would shoot at bags of paint concealed beneath plaster. It's tied to ideas of violence and liberation, reflecting on the social and political upheavals of the time. Curator: It's kind of beautiful though, in a destructive sort of way. Makes you think about how we create and destroy. Editor: Precisely, a potent commentary on the role of art in confronting societal tensions, wouldn't you agree?
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/saint-phalle-shooting-picture-t03824
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To make her Shooting Pictures, Saint Phalle filled polythene bags with paint and enclosed them within layers of plaster and chicken wire that created a textured white surface. She invited spectators to shoot at these constructions, releasing the paint. Saint Phalle considered these shootings to be performances, or ‘happenings’, which she saw as integral parts of the work just as much as the finished product. This one was shot by North American artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Saint Phalle stopped making these works in 1970, explaining ‘I had become addicted to shooting, like one becomes addicted to a drug’. Gallery label, February 2024
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