The other artwork was made by Giacometti, whose idea for most of his elongated, distant, ghostly figures arose after he saw, again in a brothel , the young ladies who worked there presenting themselves to their clients.
For a long time, in fact, prostitution in brothel houses served as a source of inspiration for artists. Gauguin, Van Gogh or Toulouse-Lautrec were also known to frequent such places. But to return to our subject, Alberto Giacometti was one of the most diligent practitioners of this aesthetic employment of prostitutes. It suited me. Art, great art, has nothing to do with the narrow crucible of politically correct ideas. People are keen to present Giacometti as a sterilized artist who elegantly furnishes the interiors of billionaires, when he was in fact a complex being.
There are currently several opportunities around the world that might afford us a better understanding of this unconventional figure. Until 2 September the Beyeler Foundation is showcasing a subtle and unexpected dialogue between two monsters of twentieth-century art, the Irish artist F rancis Bacon and the Swiss sculptor himself.
Both artists depicted the human figure and its torments. Both also envisaged the human figure encaged. Catherine Grenier co curator of the show explains how Giacometti first gained recognition in the United States, where the art dealer and son of the painter, Pierre Matisse was working. His first exhibition at the Guggenheim dates from and Moma first purchased his work in the s. A third of the exhibition will be comprised of major works never before displayed in the United States.
On 22 June the Institut Giacometti m2 is due to open in Paris, whose principal virtue will consist of reconstructing the 23 m2 of the remarkably modest studio in the 15 th arrondissement where Alberto lived from until his death in He always refused to leave it, even when he had the means to do so and even though there was no kitchen or hot water. T he entire contents of the studio have been preserved, including the walls with their drawings of ghostly figures that his wife Annette managed to recover.
