15 May 2020

Alberto Giacometti and the public space: from monument to monumentality

Live Lecture
By Michèle Kieffer
#GiacomettiChezVous

The Fondation Giacometti's research team is offering a series of online lectures, a new format broadcast live.

Although Alberto Giacometti was interested in urban sculpture and monuments on several occasions in his artistic career, none of his projects were finally erected in a public square. These projects, which were not realized for technical or financial reasons, abandoned by the artist himself or rejected by the commissioners, often went beyond the stage of a drawing and sometimes even a model. During his career, Giacometti developed a real obsession with scale, tirelessly seeking the most appropriate scale for his works by playing with the dimensions and shapes of the bases to create the desired effect of monumentality. From the studies for a monument to the glory of the Resistance fighter Gabriel Peri to the project for the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, this conference proposes to go through Giacometti's work through these projects, unfinished but which are at the origin of his most iconic works: the Man Who Walks and the Great Women.

By Michèle Kieffer, attachée de conservation at the Fondation Giacometti
Lecture in French

To search for a work, consult the Alberto Giacometti Database