Her sensual Nanas-buxom, colorful female figures laid the foundation for her international success beyond the art world: Niki de Saint Phalle. But the self-taught artist's creative spectrum is much broader, and her unconventional oeuvre, ranging from painting and drawing to assemblages, performances, theatre, film, and architecture, is more subversive and critical of society than is widely assumed. Based on her efforts to process her own feelings, she addressed social and political issues, critically questioning institutions and role models in ways that are as relevant today as they have ever been. The exhibition and the publication shed new light on the artist's exceptional personality and uncover the wide-ranging oeuvre of the popular outsider-that is always surprising and eccentric, emotional, dark and brutal, humorous and cheerful.

"Parkett 88" contains special features on four contemporary artists: painter, designer and performance artist Kerstin Bratsch (born 1976), with essays by Massimiliano Gioni, Fionn Meade and Beatrix Ruf; artist and film-maker Paul Chan (born 1973), with essays by Carrie Lambert Beatty, Alan Gilbert and Boris Groys; the pioneer of appropriationism Elaine Sturtevant (born 1930), with essays by Roger Cook, Paul McCarthy and Stephanie Moisdon; and the photographer and sculptor Andro Wekua (born 1977), with essays by Daniel Baumann, Douglas Fogle and Claire Gilman. Also in the issue are an essay by Juri Steiner and conversations between art historians Herbert Lachmeyer and Jacqueline Burckhardt, and poet Marcella Durand and painter Suzan Frecon.

For issue 86, on the occasion of "Parkett"'s 25th anniversary, the magazine's patron saint, John Baldessari has provided a special anniversary collaboration, buttressed with an interview and critical assessments. Josiah McElheny's proliferative glass works and Philippe Parreno's appropriations, interventions and films are also featured here, in spreads, interviews and critical assessments, as is the work of Carol Bove, who appears in conversation here with "Parkett" senior editor Bettina Funcke.

In this issue of "Parkett," Jan Verwoert describes Tomma Abt's abstractions as "defined by a kind of retroactive temporal logic: the movement that leads to the finished picture is a movement that keeps flowing back on itself in the process of overpainting." Julien Fronsacq calls Mai-Thu Perret's work "a product of a different persona" and suggests that it revolves "around the structure of the novel." According to Johanna Burton, Zoe Leonard uses the predominantly male photographic lineage to "speak in tongues," and to play with expectations--even as she expresses the metaphysical loneliness inherent to the medium: "There is no such thing as a truly entwined gaze," writes Burton, "only ever the promise of one and the deep breach that results from its impossibility." Also: Philipp Kaiser on Richard Hawkins, Josef Strau on Ei Arakawa, Charles Bernstein on art criticism, texts by Philip Ursprung and Jens Hoffmann, insert by John Stezaker and spine by Paulina Olowska.

Presenting unique and in-depth collaborations and editions with leading international artists, Parkett #58 features the work of Sylvie Fleury, Jason Rhoades, and James Rosenquist, three artists who work with everyday matter to produce lively and expressive paintings and installations. Contributing writers include Adrian Dannatt, Jutta Koether, and Beatrix Ruff on Fleury; Russell Ferguson, Roberto Ohrt, and a conversation between Christian Scheidemann & Eve Meyer-Hermann on Rhoades; and Constance Glenn, Pontus Hulten, Michael Lobel, John Russell, and Zdenek Felix on Rosenquist with a conversation between Jeff Koons and Rosenquist. The issue also contains essays on Hans Peter Kuhn, Jane & Louise Wilson, and an interview with Chris Ofili by Paul Miller. Parkett #59, featuring collaborations with Maurizio Cattelan, Yayoi Kusama, and Kara Walker, will include essays by Francesco Bonami on Cattelan; Midori Matsui on Kusama; and Hamza Walker and Elizabeth Janus on Walker, among others. In addition, the issue will feature articles on Anna Gaskell and Annette Messager Parkett #60 will be published in December, 2000.

"Parkett" 82 features sculptor, diarist and preeminent Feminist Louise Bourgeois; the theatrical, shamanistic Polish artist Pawel Althamer and New York sculptor Rachel Harrison. Essayists on Bourgeois include Robert Storr, whose text is aptly called "Mother of Them All/Sister of Some," Tracey Emin and Griselda Pollock, while Althamer's collaborators are Massimiliano Gioni, Catherine Wood and Adam Szymczyk. Harrison's work is discussed by Ina Blom, Richard Hawkins, George Baker and Alison Gingeras. Also in the issue are texts by Burkhard Meltzer on Susan Philipsz, Jan Verwoert on WACK, Jeremy Sigler on Brock Enright, Kenneth Goldsmith on UbuWeb and Suzanne Hudson on the 60s hippie retreat Esalen. The Cumulus texts are by Mark von Schlegell and Catherine Chevalier. There is an insert by Sadie Benning and the spine is by Paulina Olowska.

"Parkett" 81 features Christian Jankowski, Cosima von Bonin and Ai Weiwei. Texts on German-born Jankowski are by Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, Jorg Heiser and Harald Falckenberg--who sees the artist as a sort of chameleon: a blend of "actor, performer, magician, seducer, thief, knave, and charlatan." Cologne-based cult figure Cosima von Bonin, "expresses control, domination, subordination, and freindship" in her large-scale stuffed animal sculptures and colorful wall-hung fabric collages, according to Bennett Simpson, who writes along with Dirk von Lowtzow and Diedrich Diederichsen. Ai Weiwei--celebrated internationally for his mutant table and bicycle sculptures and collaborative urban architectural projects--is discussed in this issue by Philip Tinari, Jaques Herzog and Charles Merewether. Other contributions by Thomas Eaton, Jan Verwoert, Christian Scheidemann, Jeremy Sigler, Tim Griffin, Jennifer Higgie, Heimo Zobernig, Nico Baumbach, Adam Sczymczyk and Ulla von Brandenburg.

"Parkett" 85 celebrates the revered nonagenarian Austrian painter Maria Lassnig with new writing by Manuela Ammer, Robert Storr and Ludmila Vachtova; the Brazilian painter of carnival-inspired tropical plants and patterns, Beatriz Milhazes, with texts by Tanya Barson, Arto Lindsay and Barry Schwabsky; the strangely compelling French photographer of birds and bird habitats, Jean-Luc Mylayne, with writing by Josef Helfenstein and Fionn Meade; and the rising New York painter, Josh Smith, with texts by Christophe Cherix, Anne Pontegnie and Ira Wool. Also in this issue: Gabriel Kuri and Damian Ortega in conversation; Mark Godfrey on Sharon Lockhart; texts by Mark Von Schlegell, Andrew Weiner, Rainer Michael Mason and Rachel Price. Insert is by Matthias Uhr and spine is by Josh Smith.

Volume 80 of "Parkett" features Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Mark Grotjahn and the team of Allora & Calzadilla.
Lyotard spoke of the philosopher who gives us something to look at. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's "chambers" do just that--providing a sort of real-life mise-en-scene expressed in open-ended rooms with sparse furniture arrangements. In Los Angeles painter Mark Grotjahn's suave strokes of frozen color, "bands and chevrons jostle for control of the surface plane like fractured tectonic plates poised to rupture..." according to essayist Gary Garrels. Grotjahn's surfaces boldly hold the wall with an intense physicality that harkens back to Abstract Expressionism, where the proportions of the canvas and the physicality of the paint itself fully engaged the viewer. Sculptor-interventionists Allora & Calzadilla create politically charged works for the gallery as well as the street. In one recent work, we encounter a life-sized concrete military bunker with a trombone slide poking through one of its embrasures. The hidden musical ensemble performs a host of classic war songs, marches and battle hymns as well as an odd rendition of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It." With texts and contributions by Hamza Walker, Patricia Falguieres, Pamela Echeverria, Philippe Parreno, Daniel Birnbaum, Gary Garrels, Douglas Fogle, Hans Rudolf Reust, Yates McKee and Jaleh Mansoor, Christian Rattemeyer, Lyle Rexer and Adrian Notz and an insert by Ryan Gander.

"Parkett" 90 presents direct collaborations with important international artists, each of whose oeuvre is explored in several essays by leading writers and critics. Each artist also creates a special signed and numbered artwork exclusive to "Parkett." In addition to this central collaboration element, "Parkett" includes various articles on contemporary art within a series of playful guiding rubrics such as "Cumulus," "Insert" or "Les Infos du Paradis." The long list of artists that have collaborated with "Parkett" features Laurie Anderson, Richard Artschwager, Georg Baselitz, Matthew Barney, Louise Bourgeois, Francesco Clemente, Peter Fischli/David Weiss, Gilbert & George, Rebecca Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Jeff Koons, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Meret Oppenheim, Raymond Pettibon, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol and many more.