Alberto Giacometti
Encounters
26.1. — 20.5.2013

Alberto Giacometti
Encounters

26.1. — 20.5.2013

This exhibition at the Bucerius Kunst Forum takes a comprehensive look for the first time at Giacometti’s (1901 - 1966) portrait art. Portraits run through his entire body of work and shed light on his character and art like no other area. The portraits Giacometti created of his family over the years and his likenesses of the artists and philosophers in his circle of friends around Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in Paris illustrate this creative process. Interwoven human relationships continually inspired him to deal with the face and figure of his sitters in new ways. Following his Surrealist beginnings, he dealt with Existentialist philosophy and conveyed it in his anonymous portraits, including his stretched and elongated sculptures – the essence of his creative body of work.

Major, rarely seen loans from the artist’s family enable us to approach Giacometti’s work in a new way. Other sculptures, paintings and drawings are on loan from German and international museums and private collections.

The exhibition is supported by ExxonMobil and Pro Helvetia - The Swiss Arts Council.