Tu est moi (You is me),

1960

Tu est moi exemplifies the violent activation of the spectator that would make the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle famous during the 1960s. At first glance, the title, Tu est moi (You is me), reads as a French-language error and logical impossibility. But, when pronounced, it sounds like “You and me,” “You are me,” and “Kill me” in French. Saint Phalle draws on the puns of the artist Marcel Duchamp, declaring physical togetherness, even psychic identification, as the title of the work commands the viewer/reader/speaker to commit murder, as if the assemblage were a person. Foregrounded in thick white plaster, as if on a tabletop, lie found objects with their handles down: weapons ready for the taking. In the pitch-black night sky, a circle of red paint burns like the sun and bleeds like a wound. The horizon line shows just enough of a Ford Falcon’s metal logo to figure as the bird in flight and a getaway car.

AnnMarie Perl, Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer, Department of Art & Archaeology