Fondation Giacometti

This sculpture was first conceived in plaster as a scale model for its creation in wood, and it was only in 1961 that an edition was produced in bronze. First qualified by the artist as “object” or “object without base I”, The “Disagreeable Object” only received that last title in 1947. Its fundamental ambivalence of object/art piece attractive/repulsive and its eroticism make it a surrealist creation par excellence. A drawing by Giacometti made from this sculpture appeared in the magazine “Le Surréalisme au service de la révolution” in December 1931, under the heading “Mobile and mute objects”. As for the “disagreeable object to be thrown away”, its mobility is latent: such that the artist has represented it on the drawing, the object must rest on the concave part of the stem, itself curved on the bias, so that a light brush of the fingers is enough to tip it over. This fragility and instability belie the massive, closed character of the object. The points at the tip of the stem represented sharp like thorns in the drawing, are in reality blunted in the sculpture, in its wood version as in the plaster and bronze versions. The rounded part is hollowed with prints from the palm and fingers of a broad hand. The photograph made by Man Ray in 1933, portraying a woman with a naked bust tenderly holding the wooden object between her breasts and against her shoulder, as one would hold a very young child, must be placed in relation to the appellation “Embryon” given by Giacometti in his notebooks to a variant of the disagreeable object made in marble. From the mid-Fifties, Giacometti’s old surrealist creations came back in favour, hence the casting of this object.

No inscription

Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Giacometti

1964 Le Surréalisme. Sources, histoire, affinités, Paris (France), Galerie Charpentier, from April 15th to September 15th 1964
1965 Alberto Giacometti. Sculpture Paintings Drawings 1913 1965, London (United Kingdom), Tate Gallery, from July 17th to August 30th 1965, no. 14
1994 Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Malmö (Sweden), Malmö Konsthall, from October 29th 1994 to January 22nd 1995
1998 XXIV Bienal de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, from October 3rd to December 13th 1998
2005 Alberto Giacometti au donjon de Vez, Vez (France), Donjon de Vez, from June 18th to October 2nd 2005
Eduardo Westerdahl, la aventura de mirar
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Kamakura (Japan), The Museum of Modern Art, from June 3rd to July 30th 2006, no. I-12
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Kobe (Japan), Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, from August 8th to October 1st 2006, no. I-12
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Sakura (Japan), Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, from October 10th to December 3rd 2006, no. I-12
2007 L'atelier d'Alberto Giacometti, Paris (France), Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, from October 15th 2007 to February 11th 2008, no. 95
2008 Cézanne & Giacometti. Paths of doubt, Humlebæk (Denmark), Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, from February 15th to June 29th 2008, no. 93
2008 Giacometti from Paris - Works from the Alberto & Annette Giacometti Foundation, Berlin (Germany), Nationalgalerie, from July 18th to September 11th 2008
2008 Alberto Giacometti, Rotterdam (Netherlands), Kunsthal, from October 18th 2008 to February 8th 2009, no. 36
2009 Alberto Giacometti. Rétrospective, Geneva (Switzerland), Musée Rath, from November 5th 2009 to February 21st 2010
2010 Dépôt de longue durée, Villeneuve d'Ascq (France), Musée d'Art Moderne Lille Métropole, from September 23rd 2010 to August 31st 2011
2011 Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva. Colección de la Fundación Alberto y Annette Giacometti, Malaga (Spain), Museo Picasso, from October 17th 2011 to February 5th 2012
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Coleção da Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Pinacoteca do estado, from March 24th to June 17th 2012
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Coleção da Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Museu de Arte Moderna, from July 17th to September 16th 2012
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Colección de la Fundación Alberto y Annette Giacometti,París, Buenos Aires (Argentina), Fundación PROA, from October 13th 2012 to January 9th 2013
2013 Le Surréalisme et l'objet - La sculpture au défi, Paris (France), Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, from October 30th 2013 to March 3rd 2014
2014 Formes simples, Metz (France), Centre Pompidou-Metz, from June 12th to November 5th 2014
2015 Alberto Giacometti, Istanbul, Tepebasi-Beyoglu-Istanbul, PERA MUSEUM, from February 10th to April 26th 2015
2015 Alberto Giacometti au Fonds Hélène et Edouard Leclerc, Landerneau (France), Fonds Hélène & Edouard Leclerc, from June 14th to October 25th 2015
2016 Alberto Giacometti retrospective at Yuz Museum, Shanghai (China), The Shanghai Yuz Museum, from March 22nd to July 31st 2016
2016 Picasso-Giacomettii, Paris (France), Musée National Picasso, from October 4th 2016 to February 5th 2017
2017 Picasso-Giacometti at Doha, Doha (Qatar), Fire Station, from February 22nd to May 21st 2017
2018 Alberto Giacometti Retrospective Québec, Quebec (Canada), Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec, from February 8th to May 13th 2018
2018 Giacometti Retrospective Guggenheim New York, New York, NY (United States Of America), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, from June 8th to September 12th 2018
2018 Giacometti Restrospective Bilbao, Bilbao (Spain), Guggenheim Museum, from October 19th 2018 to February 24th 2019
2019 Alberto Giacometti Une aventure moderne, Villeneuve d'Ascq (France), LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne d'art contemporain et d'art brut, from March 11th to June 11th 2019
2019 Sade / Giacometti, Cruels Objets du Désir, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from November 21st 2019 to February 16th 2020
2020 Genealogies of Art, or the History of Art as Visual Art., Malaga (Spain), Museo Picasso, from February 26th to May 31st 2020
2020 Alberto Giacometti. Tête à tête., Stockholm (Sweden), Moderna Museet, from October 10th 2020 to May 30th 2021
2021 Le Surréalisme dans l'Art Américain. , Marseille (France), Centre de la Vieille Charité, from May 11th to September 26th 2021
2021 Picasso-Giacometti Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (Netherlands), Museum Voorlinden, from October 16th 2021 to February 13th 2022
2022 Giacometti - Dali. Jardins de rêves, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from December 13th 2022 to April 9th 2023
2023 Alberto Giacometti: Beginning, again., Tel Aviv (Israel), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, from April 30th to October 7th 2023

"Qu'est-ce qu'un objet surréaliste ?", in Beaux Arts magazine, Issy-les-Moulineaux : Beaux arts magazine, no. 353, november 2013, p. 117, ill. p. 116
Sune NORDGREN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Stockholm : Raster Förlag, 1994, p. 79 et 221, ill. p. 79
Paulo HERKENHOFF, Adriano PEDROSA, XXIV Bienal de São Paulo, Sao Paulo : Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 1998, ill. p. 277
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti au Donjon de Vez, Oeuvres de la Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Vez : Donjon de Vez, 2005, p. 22, ill. p. 23
Véronique WIESINGER, Toshio YAMANASHI (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Tokyo : The Tokyo Shimbun, 2006, cat. no. I-12, p. 31, ill. p. 30
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), L'atelier d'Alberto Giacometti, Paris : Fondation Giacometti, 2007 / Paris : Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2007, cat. no. 95, pl. 448, ill. p. 303
Felix A. BAUMANN-BRUCKNER, Poul Erik TOJNER (under the direction of), Cézanne & Giacometti. Paths of Doubt, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2008, cat. no. 93, p. 350, ill. p. 178
Véronique WIESINGER, En perspective, Giacometti, Lyon : Fage Editions, 2008, p. 26, ill. p. 26
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, cat. no. 36, ill. p. 96
Nadia SCHNEIDER, Alberto Giacometti, Zurich : JRP Ringier, 2009 / Geneva : Musée Rath, 2009, cat. no. s.n, p. 265, ill. p. 139
Nadia SCHNEIDER, Alberto Giacometti, Zurich : JRP Ringier, 2009 / Geneva : Musée Rath, 2009, p. 266, ill. p. 139
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 122, 123
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. A Retrospective, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 165
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 165
Camille Henrot, Paris : Kamel Mennour, 2013, ill. p. 37
Jean de LOISY (under the direction of), Formes simples, Metz : Editions du Centre Pompidou-Metz, 2014 / : Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, 2014, p. 179 & 272, ill. p. 179