From Saint Phalle to eating stars

- July 08, 2026

1. The eye has it....

On 5 May 2026 American writer and feminist commentator Sarah Wilson issued her latest book - I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (Wilson 2026). The cover was graphically interesting, to say the least.

Whilst browsing through the bookshop of the Australian National Portrait Gallery in Canberra on 22 June of that year, the present writer came across of book collection of feminist posters, with the back page cover as follows:

The poster on the top right, simply titled hon [she], caught the eye of the writer, and immediately reminded one of the Sarah Wilson cover. This blog talks about that artwork and the artist responsible.

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2. Nikki de Saint Phalle

The art work of the aforementioned Sarah Wilson book reminded the present writer of the following offset lithograph poster for a 1966 exhibition by "outsider" French-American sculptor, painter, filmmaker and author Nikki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002).

The differences between the two images are obvious: the Sarah Wilson image is facing to the left, whilst the Saint Phalle is front on; one has a red outline, whilst the other is black and green; the basic internal elements in the first are blue lines, whilst in the second it is a mix of graphical lines forming triangles, square and rectangles; in addition, both have odd shapes filling out the internal body spaces.

The Moderna Museet is a Swedish museum of modern and contemporary art in Stockholm. The Niki de Saint Phalle poster was issued for her She - A Cathedral exhibition held there between 4 June - 4 September 1966.

Gigantic Nana, She - A Cathedral, 1966.

Whilst the poster image is very flat and 2-dimensional, with a colour palette of simply black, green and purple, Saint Phalle's artworks were large, multi-coloured, 3-dismentional sculptures. This was noted in an introduction to the 2018-2019 archival exhibition celebrating the 1966 showing, as follows:

The exhibition ”She – A Cathedral” consisted of a giant sculpture, a “cathedral” (23 m wide and 6 m tall) in the form of a pregnant woman lying on her back, which the audience could enter. Inside, visitors encountered an aquarium full of goldfish, a two-seated sofa for lovers, a bar, an exhibition with paintings, a small cinema that showed a Greta Garbo movie, a slide for kids, and many other surprises. At the apex of the belly was a peephole where visitors could stick their head out and have an overview of the entire exhibition space. The installation was shown at Moderna Museet from 4 June until 4 September 1966 as a result of a collaboration between the artists Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, P.O. Ultvedt, and the Museum’s director Pontus Hultén. This project has been discussed and written about more than any other in the Museum’s history. The catalogue ”Hon – en historia” (1967) presents the entire creative process and the background. When the exhibition ended, ”She” was torn down, and the pieces were thrown away, since the demolition was part of the project. But the head still remains and gives us an idea of the installation in the main hall of Moderna Museet’s former premises which are now ArkDes. The project has been interpreted from a feminist perspective; as a happening with roots in the mediaeval carnivals; and as a type of performative exhibition, where visitors were invited to interact with art.