How Art Healed Niki de Saint Phalle

1973 marks the release of “Daddy”, a powerful movie produced by French artist, sculptor and feminist, Niki de Saint Phalle with the help of Peter Whitehead. In that psychedelic piece of art, she denounces the patriarchy and takes control over a masculine figure, represented by a gigantic phallic sculpture.

“Daddy” reflects the story of an incestuous relationship between a father and his daughter, which is inspired by a true story since she had to live this tragic event when she was 12. Niki de Saint Phalle used « Daddy » as a form of mediation and catharsis to find her inner peace and have a piece of mind about her resentment she was feeling towards her dad by “killing” him 17 times fictively. The fatherly figure was substituted by a phallic symbol, which the artist considered as a form of desire but also repulsion. This phallus placed in a coffin represents death. Ich, the main character of the movie, implicitly reminding of Niki herself, was taking control over her dad by making a fool out of him. Ich is going to become a sexual predator and will be depicted as a seducer to her own mother and an abuser to her father. The making of the movie revealed this Niki’s trauma. Hence why “Daddy” has had therapeutic benefits to her killing tendencies towards her dad. Twenty years later, Niki de Saint Phalle was able to overcome her past and move forward by publishing “Mon Secret”, an autobiography divulging the rape committed by her father.

On a happier note, 1973 also marks the release of her famous sculpture “The dragon of Knokke”. Inspired by Gollem, like him, Dragon has a tongue slide for children to slide down. It seems that besides her dark art productions, she was able to produce colorful and joyful piece of art. In later years, Keith Haring added a piece of him by drawing his famous little guys on the interior’s wall.

Finally, nowadays with social media and the #MeToo, it became much easier to share a trauma, an experience and denounce sexual abuse. Through that, kids are being educated and adults must prevent their children from important subject like those. Art can be a tool for that and just like Niki, trauma could be expressed with in a metaphoric, fantazing and creative way.