Mon secret and the Politics of Creation

Art as a Response to Incest

Abstrakti

Artistic creation can function as a means of processing and denouncing sexual abuse, as well as raising awareness of gender-based violence with a distinctly political and activist dimension. This close interrelation between the personal and the political is evident in Niki de Saint Phalle’s autobiographical artist’s book Mon secret (1993), addressed to her daughter Laura. On the final page of Mon secret, Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002) articulates her regret at not having been able to disclose to her daughter Laura, during her adolescence, the sexual abuse she endured at the age of eleven at the hands of her father. At the same time, she expresses her intention to write a book designed to help children protect themselves.

This article examines Niki de Saint Phalle’s artist’s book Mon secret alongside her series of performances Tirs (1961-1963) and the experimental film Daddy (1972). These works will be placed in dialogue with other creations by the Franco-American artist that address sexist and racist violence embedded in patriarchal structures, challenge established gender roles, and advocate for the need to rethink, imagine, and embody alternative representations and narratives. This article explores, through a selection of representative works by Saint Phalle, how artistic practice can operate as a political and activist tool, drawing attention to and denouncing gender-based violence, while simultaneously initiating processes of individual and collective reparation.