ALBERTO GIACOMETTI RETROSPECTIVE
On Tuesday 13th October, Budi Tek, founder of Yuz Museum Shanghai, along with Catherine Grenier, director and chief curator of Fondation Giacometti, Paris, announced at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the first ever China solo exhibition devoted to works by Alberto Giacometti.
The artist, widely considered as the most important sculptor of the 20th century, is presented at the National Portrait Gallery London and at Frieze Art Fair, during which the announcement was made at the Buditek Wine Tasting event organised in conjunction with the vibrant art season in London.
Formally signed between the two institutions in Beijing on May 15, 2015, this great exhibition is an asset of the Dialogue on Human Exchanges between Chinese and French Governments, witnessed by Madam Liu Yandong, Vice Premier of China and by Mr. Laurent Fabius, French Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Opening to the public on 22nd March of 2016, the exhibition curated by Catherine Grenier (director of Fondation Giacometti, Paris) in collaboration with Christian Alandete brings to Shanghai over 250 works, making it the largest retrospective ever shown in Asia for the first time.
The exhibition covers the whole career of Giacometti from the early years, the cubist and surrealist period all the way to the gaunt and lonely human figures of the 1960’s. It makes the most of the formidable depth of the collection including original plasters, bronzes, as well as a great selection of major paintings, drawings, photos and archives.
Included are many of the iconic works Giacometti created such as the Spoon Woman, the Walking Woman (1932), The Nose (1947), The Cage (1951), Tall woman I (1960) and Tall Woman IV (1960), as well as iconic Walking Man I (1960) and major painted and sculptures portraits of Annette, Diego, Yanaihara or Caroline.
While it has a loose chronological thread, it is a thematic approach that allows to explore the crucial issues of his oeuvre through a dozen sections designed for Yuz Museum by the Louvre Lens Museographer, Adrien Gardère. Spectacular sections are devoted to his relationship to Paris with drawings and the “Paris sans fin” series of engravings, to the confrontation of his larger than life women bronze figures and tiny figures, to his obsession with heads and to the recreation of the famous project for the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York including the « Walking Man I » of 1960.
A catalog of 300 pages will be published by Editions Dilecta, Paris, one version in English, one in Chinese to be largely in China, where the art of Giacometti has accompanied a large number of artists in their practical training and critical approach to modernity.
