DELIVERED enchantment DE

THE TAROT GARDEN

Capalbio (GR)

Below de Saint Phalle

Nadia Di Tozzoli

The brains and brawn of this wonder is the French artist Niki de Saint Phalland.

Visit her park is to immerse yourself in a world of dreams, colorful and animated by fantastic characters that remind us of places dear to childhood, that make us think of space dream, to Alice and her wonderful world, witches and wizards who had come from far away and in a time that escapes the memory.

The viewer, adult or child, is guaranteed an exciting and amazing. Just the feeling of wonder has accompanied my entire walk in the garden in front of each sculpture – installation in the park. And when I say amazing I mean not only "wonder" but I refer to what the term indicates in the psychological namely "A state of suspension of the physical and psychological after which the subject remains absent from all that surrounds it, estranged from the habitual stimuli and perception of the context of reassuring reality "[1].

The shifting and suspension of time are felt immediately crossing the threshold input; to divide the Maremma landscape of the park is a wall structure made of tufa by the architect Mario Botta and which acts as a veritable link between the real world and the fantasy world that is waiting to be discovered.

But before being totally dragged into this magic, the viewer is greeted by the words dell 'artista same that welcomes speaking in a direct way through sentences written in italics on a wall of tiles, like a page torn from a personal diary. And that's where Niki reveals his relationship and feeling of devotion to the work of the master Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí and especially to his Park Guell Barcelona. And 'from this meeting Niki mature its ambitious project to create what she called a 'the garden of joy”.

The garden takes shape slowly, in a span very broad, ranging from the late 70s until 2002 year in which the artist dies (although it will be open to the public as early as 1997).

At the ticket is given a small map to navigate within the space that is printed directly on the entrance but do not really know how many visitors decide to use it. More fascinating is let go and get lost in the colors and light reflections that surprise and capture the attention along the way.

With childlike curiosity, full of enthusiasm and willing to leave me amazed by every detail I walked towards the encounter with these totemic characters that seem to be waiting to be admired and contemplated. The visual impact is strong: installations attract and not only in size and shape, but also for the light games that propagate. Each figure is constructed by applying the structure, realized by means of a metallic net and cement, mosaics made with fragments of glass, colorful tiles and other small ceramic elements that determine a kaleidoscopic vision of the whole. The choice of the mosaic as an art technique of execution refers to religious and mystical as it was the Byzantine, where religious icons were made through this technique then, either come to Capalbio, allows light games that refer to a spiritual and transcendental vision.

In the park, Below de Saint Phalle, leaves the viewer free to get an idea about the characters she created because there are no captions, and presentations, but at the end of visit I discover in the catalog for sale at the bookshop that the artist wanted to tell the viewer a little story about each of its loyal characters.

[1] M.Dallari, F. Francucci "The educational experience of the art", The New Italian Editrice, 1998

The walk in the garden of wonders not only allows this sensory satisfaction, but also a more meditative and reflective. Along the route there are benches where visitors can relax and focus their attention on short poems and words with which the artist signature every corner of the park: inscriptions in the cement stairs and written in italics on the tiles.

Each visit takes in different words and phrases, why is the vast catalog of items that can be drawn. In every corner there is a thought, a word, a design that takes the audience on his walk; is a message left there as if by accident, on a wall or engraved into the concrete of the steps, that calls the viewer, involves him and gives him a share of the various emotions and moods that have inhabited the place and to which the viewer responds in turn leaving a piece of personal history, through its passage and enjoyment of the place.

Leaving the park,, returning to the real world, I realize that after I filled the eyes of beauty, colors, of harmonious forms, rounded, sweet and protective and after I fed on thoughts, reflections on life, art, on poetry, what has the upper hand is the emotional shock that causes me the thought of the intent of this extraordinary artist.

I imagined a Niki, a bit 'troubled, fragile ma Glossy, working with a will total, or as it says itself, with faith, creating the project of his life, namely to create a Little Slice of Heaven.

And it does so thinking of all and above all.

It moves me his attempt to involve lots of people, to share each stage of this magical journey. E Allora thinks Tinguely, her ex-husband and a lover of life, who asks for his contribution reassuring as brilliant artist and an expert on hand to fix structural and constructive. It then calls other, the people around her with their affection in the small town of Maremma, by Ugo postman who first experience the installation of mirrors on the sculptures, the potter Venera Finocchiaro Niki processes by which various ceramic techniques.

Work is finished, the artist turns his thoughts to those who keep alive his project that viewers. And just for them, so that they may enjoy in the best conditions of this masterpiece, leaves some sort of testament in which said some rules, as times of opening and closing, prohibitions of guided tours, of educational workshops, so that his visitor can feel free to get lost in the magic and the park that are always in perfect condition.

It excites me to think of this tangle of lives, relations, dealing, feelings, fed by this project whose emotions and feelings you still breathe and mingle with those of visitors each day, perform their pilgrimage in the Garden of Wonders.