ART CITIES:London-Alberto Giacometti

The exhibition “Alberto Giacometti: In His Own Words (Sculptures 1925-1934)”, focuses on a series of sculptures from this crucial decade in Giacometti’s life, the exhibition provides a rare insight into the development of the artist’s practice, which led to the crystallization of the more familiar style that characterizes Giacometti’s later work. This exhibition includes 18 sculptures from this period.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Luxembourg & Dayan Archive

In 1922 Alberto Giacometti moved to Paris to study under the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, an associate of Rodin. It was there that Giacometti experimented with Cubism and Surrealism. In 1926 he exhibited his very first major bronze sculpture work, the idol-like “Spoon Woman” (1926-27), at the Salon des Tuileries. By the ‘30s, Giacometti had been warmly welcomed into Surrealist circles, and he became close to figures such as Man Ray, Joan Miró, André Masson and Max Ernst, as well as the movement’s founders André Breton and Louis Aragon. But he also published work in Documents, the periodical produced by writer Georges Bataille, who was then putting forward a version of Surrealism in opposition to Breton’s. Critics now believe that Bataille’s ideas may have been important in inspiring several of Giacometti’s Surrealist works, such as “Suspended Ball” (1930-1). The exhibition takes its cue from a letter that Alberto Giacometti wrote to his New York dealer and friend Pierre Matisse in 1947 that accompanied a group of sculptures planned for an exhibition at Matisse’s gallery. “Here is the list of sculptures that I promised you, but I could not send it without explaining a certain succession of facts […] without which it would make no sense”. What followed these words is a fascinating account of Giacometti’s thoughts on sculpture, a testimony of his relentless pursuit to express truth in his work in a manner that is not limited to mere external resemblance. Giacometti’s letter reveals how this period was marked by a deep personal and stylistic crisis, which gradually led him to withdraw from traditional sculptural techniques and to experiment with Primitivism, Cubism, and Surrealism. The exhibition brings together sculptures from plaster, bronze, and wood that reconstitutes the importance of this particularly exciting period in Giacometti’s life, including seminal works such as “Tête” (1927), “Femme Couchée” (1929), and “Objet Désagréable” (1931).

Info: Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, 2 Savile Row, London, Duration: 2/2-9/4/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-17:00, Sat 12:00-16:00, www.luxembourgdayan.com