Niki De Saint-Phalle Essay

Despite the deeper insight gained into artwork, there is a lot that a feminist approach does not take into account. One of the advantages of the feminist approach was that it highlighted incoherences in the artist's discourse. However, this approach cannot fully pinpoint the reasons behind the artist's ideological stance. Saint-Phalle's rendition of feminism in her work does not show awareness of some central debates, such as the suppression of models based on a singular vision of the female body (Grosz). The reason why might be simply that those debates were not at the centre of feminist thought in the sixties. The viewer who analyses an artwork through their own personal, contemporary approach will never experience it as the artist might …show more content…
Niki de Saint-Phalle did not necessarily have the motivation to treat the question of dualism more in depth than she did in the Nanas series, and this can only be perceived through a biographical approach to the artist and her work. Moreover, looking at the artist's personal life can uncover other interesting aspects of their work. In the case of Niki de Saint-Phalle, we can observe what Catherine Dossin called "the masquerade of hyperfemininity". Saint-Phalle's personal choices of self-representation can provide an explanation for the exaggerated feminine form of the Nanas. Her decision to dress and act as a femme fatale in the media, using traditional dress codes imposed by men on women as a costume, is a revendication of her own ability to master her body and use these codes to liberate herself. The masquerade of hyperfemininity nuances some of the limitations we have found to Saint-Phalle's feminist discourse, such as the essentialist stance of her work. Niki de Saint-Phalle's Nanas enable women to reclaim traditional patriarchal codes to make them their own. This, however, cannot be perceived if the personal life and choices of the artist are not studied