Majors Only Deck – The Niki de Saint Phalle Tarot has only 22 cards, the Major Arcana from 0 to 21. But that’s for good reason … see the next point
Tarot Garden – Each card is based on the Major Arcana figures created by artist Niki de Saint Phalle for her magical Tarot Garden, otherwise known as Il Giardino Dei Tarocchi. It’s a real place with giant sculptures of all the Major Arcana. The garden is located about an hour outside of Rome.
Card Stock – The actual cards are beautiful to touch and to shuffle. They’re shiny, bright, and not too big, but big enough to show off the gorgeous artwork.
Artwork – Speaking of artwork – the images are bright, bold, and colourful renditions of the sculptures from the Tarot Garden on a white background … and did I mention they were embossed? Or at least parts of the images are, and all of the titles. It appropriately adds a little sculptural texture to the deck.
Titles – Some of the titles break from RWS tradition … #6 is called The Choice instead of the more common Lovers. And The Tower is called The Tower of Babel, thus putting more focus on communication then some other Towers might .
Emperor – The Emperor is a castle, a foundation rather than a man.
Instruction Booklet – And last but not least, the Little White Book includes notes from Niki herself.
Overall, I love this deck. Its clear, fun, and wise. I know it’s no substitute for actually visiting The Tarot Garden itself, but it’s as close as I can get while sitting in The Tarot Room in Toronto.
…And don’t be surprised if I post some pictures of The Tarot Garden soon, courtesy of my travelling Tarot friend.
Though her Tarot work is not part of this exhibition, if you happen to be in Bilbao, Spain, and are a fan of Niki de Saint Phalle, creator of the Tarot Garden, you really should try to get down to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao sometime between now and June 11th.
Niki de Saint Phalle is a major retrospective of this incredible artist’s work and includes over 200 pieces and archive documents, some of which have never been published.
In the video below, Álvaro Rodriguez Fominaya, one of the show’s curators, gives us a little sneak peak of what to expect. Take a look.
I’ve posted the full-version of Catherine Cabeen’s dance piece Fire! before, but I came across this new trailer for it and thought I’d post it as well.
Enormous Tarot sculptures created by the fabulous Niki de Saint Phalle fill the garden with magic and colour. It’s incredible. I really want to see it in person.
But until I can, I’ll have to make due with pictures and videos other people have been good enough to post.
And if you haven’t already, take a look at the videos on the garden’s official website. You can watch Niki de Saint Phalle herself talk about her creation.
This incredible artist passed on in 2002, but the fantastical mosaic garden she created is still there, a wonder for Tarot lovers everywhere. Twenty-two gigantic sculptures, all inspired by the archetypes of the Tarot deck. It’s absolutely beautiful.
Some of the sculptures are little buildings you can walk into, like the mirrored Temperance, and the one bedroom Empress flat.
One bosom is a kitchen, the other a bedroom. You can sit on her back and look out to the Mediterranean. Niki de Saint Phalle lived in it while she was building the garden. What a dream!
You can see it here in this video.
And here’s a slideshow of the whole park. I don’t know the people pictured, but they seem like a lovely family.
What a magical place. Thank you Niki de Saint Phalle!
