Alberto Giacometti
Collection of the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation, Paris
Presentation
Alberto Giacometti in Proa, by Adriana Rosenberg
Education
Exhibitions Credits
Presentation
Fundación Proa is presenting the first retrospective of Alberto Giacometti (Borgonovo, Switzerland, 1901-París, 1966) ever held in Argentina. Giacometti specialist and curator Véronique Wiesinger has selected 148 works produced from 1910 to 1960, most of them from the Collection of the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation in Paris, though some from private collections in Argentina and the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.
The exhibition was organized by the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation, Base7 Projetos Culturais and Fundación Proa, and it is sponsored by Tenaris – Techint.
Born in Borgonovo, Switzerland, Alberto Giacometti is considered one of the most outstanding artists of the 20th century. As a young man in 1922, he moved to Paris—home at that time to artists involved in the exciting cultural scene surrounding the early avant-gardes—where he would live until the time of his death in 1966. Despite Giacometti’s early recognition, this is the first time that these 148 works from the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation will be exhibited in South America, under the curatorship of that foundation’s director, Véronique Wiesinger.
The exhibition encompasses the major themes of Giacometti’s creative life: his training with Cézanne; the influence of Cubism; his discovery of African art in the 1920s; the ongoing importance of magical thinking and Surrealism in his work, and the invention of a new representation of the human being. Giacometti’s intellectual restlessness brought him into contact with the major thinkers of his time: André Breton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Genet, many of whom he portrayed in paintings and sculptures.
The show begins with the presentation of his first paintings, drawings and sculptures, media in which he would continue to work throughout his life; it culminates with his monumental works from the 1960s.
Giacometti worked with the decorator Jean Michel Frank on the design of works of decorative art. Some of those included in the exhibition were acquired by Argentine collectors in 1939. Indeed, in 1929 Argentine Elvira de Alvear became the first person to purchase a work by Giacometti in Paris. The exhibition also includes the sculpture Tête qui regarde.
The clusters of work formulated by the curator are the discovery of primitive art; the question of the human head; objects; cages and frames; the dimensions of representation; figures; busts and monuments. Each of them betrays the artist’s aesthetic concerns, which are also reflected in his writings and interviews.
The exhibition catalogue, which is a joint publication of the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation and the Fundación Proa, includes texts by the curator, Giacometti’s own writings, a biography of the artist, reproductions of works, as well as never-before-published research on Giacometti’s ties to South America. It constitutes, therefore, essential reference material on the artist in the Spanish language.
Fruit of three years of work and close collaboration between the Giacometti Foundation, the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro and Fundación Proa, this ambitious exhibition was produced by Base7 Projetos Culturais; it has been supported by the French Embassy in Argentina and sponsored by Tenaris – Organización Techint.
Alberto Giacometti in Proa
Adriana Rosenberg
“A Giacometti exhibition is a town. He sculpts men that cross paths in a square without
seeing one another; they are inevitably alone and yet together.” Jean Paul Sartre
To present and address Alberto Giacometti’s oeuvre means to experience the most fundamental and radical aspects of art from the last century. To take in his territory means to delve into a morass of formulations where the image we see interrogates us respectfully, inciting admiration and surprise. It is the eruption of emptiness, of silence, of subjectivity, and of a particular and unique way of representing the human figure.
Friend to the philosophers of the time and engaged in the evolution of existence, he wrote: “[…] the only thing that can fill us with passion is discovering a new strain, a new space, sensing it in a penumbra barely touched by light. That is the sphinx that once in a while shares a word of its enigma, and all of those words constitute the sum of human knowledge. That knowledge is a faint gleam that always quivers in the unknown, in what surrounds us, what touches us, what penetrates and envelops us […]” (Writings, p. 364)
There are many reasons it is significant to present this exhibition of the work of Alberto Giacometti. Due to the value of his thinking and of his art, his figure continues to gain recognition.
Curated by Véronique Wiesinger, this exhibition of a fundamental artist, sculptor, painter and draftsman evidences the breadth of his formulations. The 150 works it contains were selected from the collection of the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation in Paris in order to encompass each of the most emblematic moments in his life and work.
Thanks to a joint effort with the Pinacoteca of San Pablo, the Museu de Arte Moderna of Rio de Janeiro and Fundación Proa, this is the first time this exhibition has been held in South America. In the editions in Brazil and Argentina, the curator has included works from collections housed in those countries.
The catalog contains reproductions of a selection of the works exhibited, as well as a curatorial statement, a selection of Giacometti’s writings and an interview with him, and new research on Giacometti in Brazil and Argentina.
It would not have been possible to exhibit this remarkable body of work without the tireless effort and commitment of the team at Base7 which organized the exhibition for the three sites. We would also like to thank the Annette and Alberto Giacometti Foundation in Paris for the generous loan of such valuable holdings.
We would once again like to thank a great many institutions, embassies and groups of individuals working in a number of countries, and most especially the board of Tenaris, Organización Techint, who supported this exhibition in both Brazil and Argentina, thus affirming a commitment to communicating work crucial to the understanding of 20th-century thought and art.
Education
From Tuesday to Sunday at 17:00hs, the Department of Education organizes guided in depth visits. Tuesdays are student days, where reference materials such as books and catalogues are made available to the public in the bookstore. Visits in English available.
For more information: http://proa.org/eng/education.php / +54 11 4104 1041 / educacion@proa.org.
Exhibition Credits
Alberto Giacometti: Collection of the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation, Paris
Curator Véronique Wiesinger
Organization
Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation
Base7 Projetos Culturais
Fundación Proa
Exhibition assistant Cecilia Braschi
Production
Stéphanie Barbé-Sicouri
Hélène Sarreau
Alban Chaine
Daniela Vicedomini Coelho
Ivanei da Silva
Elise Jasmin
Renata Viellas Rödel
Miguel Frias
Montserrat Hernández Mauricio
Expository design
Caruso & Torricella Architetti
Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation
Conservation
Teresa Gowland
Silvina Bono
Design
spin.co.uk Londres
Montage
Pablo Zaefferer
Soledad Oliva
Assistants
Matías Dimenzón
Juan Pablo García Pereyra
Sergio Lamanna
Diego Mur
Hernán Soriano
Hernán Torres
Education
Paulina Guarnieri
Rosario García Martínez
Camila Villarruel
Educators
Agostina Gabanetta
Mariano Gilmore
Mercedes Longo Brea
Laia Ross Comerma
Acknowledgments
Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation, Paris
Private collection, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro