The Ultimate She

She is positively gargantuan. She is 82 feet long, 30 feet wide, weighs six tons, is built like a zeppelin of chicken wire, fabric and glue, and is currently lying on her back with knees raised in a gallery of Stockholm's Museum of Modern Art. A cross between an amusement park and a return to the womb, She is one of the most uproarious, outrageous--and incredibly popular--exhibits to make its debut in Sweden's capital in years.

Bright, fresh, satirical and full of surprises, She is the result of a month-long collaboration by three of the zaniest sculptors anywhere around: Switzerland's Jean Tinguely, a maker of mad machines; Niki de Saint-Phalle, his American-born friend, famed for her outsized Nana dolls; and Sweden's Per Olof Ultvedt. The three started out full of enthusiasm, which never slackened for a second. Says Tinguely": "It's a Noah's ark, Gulliver's Travels, the tower of Babel. It's like being in an airplane, a factory, a church. Everything in it has significance."

If so, the Swedes were not disturbed one whit. They queued up to enter "the portal of life," clustered about the soft-drink bar inside one breast. Children toboggan down the inside of the right thigh, shrilling, "Oh, what a funny house!" Couples snuggle in the love seat in the left leg, blissfully unaware that the sculptors have hidden microphones that are broadcasting their sweet nothings to the laughing crowd in the breast bar. Youngsters scramble up the stairs through the tummy, pop out of the navel, where there is a conveniently placed table on a terrace. "It's one of the nicest things," says Niki de Saint-Phalle. "Spectators can get a good view of the woman and talk with their friends below."

Red and green lights control traffic at the entrance. Just inside, visitors find an aquarium full of goldfish. Farther along, a 1922 Greta Garbo film flickers continually in a twelve-seat cinema. Throughout the corpus, the clanking of various mechanical fantasies mingles with the solemn reverberation of Bach's organ music. "Women love it. They seem to understand immediately that it's a homage to them," says Niki. And very best of all, even the psychiatrists seem to approve. Said one: "It will affect the dreams of the Swedes who see it for years to come."

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