Alberto Giacometti

Pera Museum proudly announced the first major exhibition of sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti in Turkey taking a retrospective approach. Organized in collaboration with the Giacometti Foundation, Paris, this exhibition explored Giacometti’s prolific life, most of which the artist led in his studio in Montparnasse, through the works of his early period as well his late work, including one unfinished piece.

Curated by Giacometti Foundation’s Director Catherine Grenier, the exhibition offered a chronological and thematic itinerary covering the two definitive periods of Alberto Giacometti’s life –before and after the Second World War- and touched upon his friendships with the leading artists and intellectuals of his period in Paris.

Devoted to Giacometti’s early works, the first part of the exhibition demonstrated the influence of Giovanni Giacometti, the father of the artist and a Swiss Post-Impressionist painter himself, on Giacometti’s output during these years and his role in his son’s development. The exhibition also illustrated Alberto Giacometti’s relations with Post-Cubist artists and the Surrealist movement between 1922 and 1935, one of the important sculptures series he created during his first years in Paris, and the critical role he played in the art scene of the period.

The second part of the exhibition brought together the artist’s key works from his mature period, most of which were made between 1950 and 1960, a time when the artist had altered his perception of the world and depicted reality not as it was but as he saw it. This was also the period when he focused on the human figure. As in his paintings, Giacometti worked nonstop on his sculptures, either from nature or from memory, trying to capture the universal facial expressions.

In the 60s, Giacometti paid homage to Paris, the city where he lived, by drawing its streets, cafés, and more private places like his studio and the apartment of his wife, Annette. These drawings would make up his last book, Paris sans fin (Paris Without End). A wide selection of lithographs from these drawings accompanies the exhibition, along with archival material (letters, sketches, publications) and a selection of photographs.

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