Located: Near Kemper Center (n17) - Download map
Date completed: 2001
Origin: USA
Medium: Polyurethane foam, resin, tumbled stones, ceramic tiles, mirrored glass, and glass pebbles
Height: 7 ft. by 25 ft. long
Weight: 4,000 lbs.
Niki said that for many years, a good deal of her work was concerned with bringing joy, color, and an aggressive humor and fantasy to life.
Niki's playful animals were part of her vision of sculpture committed to bringing joy. The colorful mosaics that cover them appeal to both the eye and the body. Niki felt it was very important that both adults and children interact with her sculptures. She loved to see children climb on these animals. Feel free to touch, sit, crawl on, or enter them. Their edges are rounded so that kids can climb on them safely. The concave lap of Cat is an intimate refuge in which you can curl up.
Nikigator, Seals, Guardian Lions, and Cat descend from the mosaic animals with which Niki surrounded the artist Mario Bottas Ark in their collaborative interpretation of the Noahs Ark story, at the children's zoo in Jerusalem.
Additional Information
Many pieces in our exhibit are accompanied by a free audio tour and podcast. Links to the audio files are provided below, as well as a transcript of the recording.
My Memory of Niki (mp3)
Phone: (314) 558-4357 - 8#
My name is Laura Gabriela, and I'm Niki's daughter. I remember Niki as the wise Nikigator.
Niki was undaunted by opposition, she wasn't afraid of being attacked. On the contrary she took it all as a response and it stimulated her and it gave fuel to her fire and she knew she that was on the right track and she had more to do and it just kept her going.
As a kid I was a little you know scared sometimes because these artists bring things that are new and there is a lot of hostility that shows up sometimes but I understand that she knew how to play the game of life and she knew how to respond creatively and she never lost her focus and she used the opposition to keep going and I'm still learning from that.
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