Fondation Giacometti

The “Disagreeable object to be thrown away” only received that title belatedly, in a letter written in 1947 by Alberto Giacometti to his dealer Pierre Matisse. Before, the artist had simply called it “object” and its somewhat pleasurable character was left for the spectator to appreciate. A drawing by Giacometti from that sculpture was published in the magazine “Le Surréalisme au service de la révolution” in December 1931, under the heading “Mobile and mute objects”. As with the “Suspended ball”, the mobility of the “Disagreeable object to be thrown away” is latent: balanced on one or two points and its median plane, no position of presentation can exhaust all the possibilities of the object. The work is truly, as Giacometti called it around 1934, an “Object difficult to lay down”. It is also a “Walking head”, a title published in 1955: when one looks at it from a certain side, one distinctly sees a face with sad eyes, with the two pointed protuberances that can evoke legs on the other side. This work was exhibited for the first time in 1933 at the Pierre Colle gallery, in its wood version (today at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh). The plaster version was displayed for the first time in Zurich in 1934, in a group exhibition of abstract art gathering the works of Arp, Ernst, Giacometti, Gonzalez and Miró, under the title “Object without base II”. The casting of the bronzes took place from 1960 at Susse’s, and was then continued by Bruno Giacometti at Pastori’s in Switzerland after Alberto Giacometti’s death.

Signature and cast number engraved on the back, on the bottom to the right "A. Giacometti 4/6"

Sale Christie's Inc. London (United Kingdom), June 27th, 1983, lot n ° 60
Sale Christie's Inc. London (United Kingdom), June 24th, 1985, lot n ° 31
Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Giacometti

1998 Alberto Giacometti, Montréal (Canada), Musée des Beaux-Arts, from June 18th to October 18th 1998, no. 22
2005 Alberto Giacometti au donjon de Vez, Vez (France), Donjon de Vez, from June 18th to October 2nd 2005
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Kamakura (Japan), The Museum of Modern Art, from June 3rd to July 30th 2006, no. I-11
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Kobe (Japan), Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, from August 8th to October 1st 2006, no. I-11
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Sakura (Japan), Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, from October 10th to December 3rd 2006, no. I-11
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. 96
2008 En perspective, Giacometti, Caen (France), Musée des Beaux-Arts, from May 17th to August 31st 2008
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
2015 Alberto Giacometti, Istanbul, Tepebasi-Beyoglu-Istanbul, PERA MUSEUM, from February 10th to April 26th 2015
2016 Alberto Giacometti retrospective at Yuz Museum, Shanghai (China), The Shanghai Yuz Museum, from March 22nd to July 31st 2016
2017 Christian Dior, couturier du rêve, Paris (France), Musée des Arts Décoratifs, from July 5th 2017 to January 7th 2018
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 Alberto Giacometti. Tête à tête., Stockholm (Sweden), Moderna Museet, from October 10th 2020 to May 30th 2021
2022 Giacometti - Dali. Jardins de rêves, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from December 13th 2022 to April 9th 2023

Jean-Louis PRAT (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Montréal : Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1998, cat. no. 22, p. 95
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. 20, ill. p. 21
Véronique WIESINGER, Toshio YAMANASHI (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Tokyo : The Tokyo Shimbun, 2006, cat. no. I-11, p. 31, ill. p. 30
Véronique WIESINGER, Giacometti. La figure au défi, Paris : Découvertes Gallimard, 2007, ill. p. 39
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. 96, pl. 449, ill. p. 304
Véronique WIESINGER, En perspective, Giacometti, Lyon : Fage Editions, 2008, p. 130, ill. p. 72 & 130
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, pl. 11, ill. p. 33
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 82, 83
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. A Retrospective, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 161
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 161