The shape of what Giacometti sees
The shape of what Giacometti sees
What was seen in Copenhagen, in Paris, on the subject.
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By Lucia Billing
Reviewed:
Alberto Giacometti - What Meets the Eye (Copenhagen SMK Museum, 2013)
A Giacometti Portrait (James Lord, 1965)
Much of the advice one gets on painting or drawing is to disconnect oneself from what is identifiable, and rather, imitate what one sees. The human eye, when paired with the brain, has the immediate task of identifying what is around it. Even for children, which have not been hammered with ‘signifiers and signifieds’, their idea of a face remains two dots and an arc. So, how does an artist, who has lived many more lifetimes than that of a child, circumvent this process of association?
Well, Giacometti tried to find ways around this question, all while not shying away from what a harrowing experience it can be.
The Statens Museum for Kunst Giacometti exhibition featured a mix of two-dimensional and three-dimensional works. My opinion on the curation and arrangement of the exhibition are mixed. On a previous visit to a Giacometti exhibition in Lisbon I much preferred how the works were displayed. One thing I can appreciate about Japan is their limiting of visitors of a particular exhibition, and it is something which would have improved my viewing experience. The main issue resulting from a crowded exhibition was the constant beep of the alarm, which would activate as soon as one stepped closer than 40cm from any display podium; in an exhibition that is cluttered with sculptures, this was without a doubt a poor decision.
Furthermore, the arrangement of the exhibition by the means of a large room followed by multiple smaller spaces did not appeal to me. The first room after the large salon featured a video of the artist explaining his approach to artmaking. Giacometti did this while simultaneously showcasing his self-deprecating, yet charismatic, personality. Although it was a lovely interview, its placement within the exhibition felt poor. In general, I find that Giacometti’s works should be viewed within empty spaces. This can either be done by large, vacant areas, or smaller spaces which allow for the viewing experience to not move beyond the work. Alternating between a large crowded room, followed by a sequence of middle-sized rooms depreciated the viewing experience.
Nevertheless, the contents of the exhibition were fairly well-picked. There was variation between some of the most well-known Giacometti sculptures, including The Nose, (one version of) Walking Man, and Three Walking Men. Whilst also making the choice to include more drawings of the artist, including examples from the journal Les Temps Modernes, in which Giacometti had drawn over. I appreciated the latter half of the exhibition’s focus on the artist's life in Paris, as much attention was drawn to the intellectuals with whom Giacometti surrounded himself. The choice to create links to philosophical matters in the late parts of the exhibition made little sense to me. Based on the linear walkthrough intended by the sequence of rooms, the viewer was introduced to the thoughts, methods, and influences behind his works after having viewed them. I find that an inverted sequence, or a non-linear walkthrough would have allowed for a better understanding and viewing experience.
Ignoring my qualms with the curation and arrangement of the exhibition, my thoughts on the artist and his work can hopefully help explain my opinion of the exhibition.
Giacometti is hard to approach purely by his work. My introduction to him (besides the odd mention and/or general knowledge of his work) was the book A Giacometti Portrait by James Lord, which I absolutely loved. Learning about artists at work is always interesting, however learning about Giacometti’s process was particularly enjoyable. The artist constantly oscillates between a state of anticipation toward what is to come, and sorrow over what he has lost. “We can’t stop now. I thought I’d stop when it was going well. But now it’s going very badly. It’s too late. We can’t stop now”. The result is a comical, yet very relatable, insight into the experience of artistic creation. Anyone who tinkers with visual arts can identify with similar ordeals.
And so, I would argue that Giacometti’s artistic process is characterized by conflict over flight. He always seems to be attempting to find an element, or a moment which is always fleeting away from him. He cannot help but continue when things are going well and refuse to give up when things are going bad. In the battle against creation, Giacometti fights bitterly.
As mentioned in the early part of this review, Giacometti’s goal is to create the world as his eyes see it. The complication which arises from this impossible task is the core of his work. I find that his sculptures, and their popular appeal over Giacometti’s paintings and drawings, are owed to their existence as being within a nothingness. Despite their rugged shapes, often elongated, their existence is decisive and does not exist within the limbo of much of his drawings, and even more, his paintings. Perhaps sculpture as a medium was easier for the artist to fight with, or it could have been that it is easier for us as viewers to see through. In my opinion (and in that of others) Giacometti’s works are always “always mediating between nothingness and being”. If this nothingness is the grey, all-consuming matter of his portraits, what is it in his sculptures?
In his quest to capture the ephemerality of the moment, his sculptures are always withering away. Their – at times – minuscule size suggests a sensation of flight between the artist and his subject. And the rough, encased texture of the sculptures might be viewed as products of the “prodigious, magical powers of fermentation” which the work goes through as the artist sits with it. Another dimension in which this teetering into nothingness can be viewed is through Giacometti’s portrayal of figures in the style of early civilizations. The artist creates the impression of the end by linking it to the beginning. It is also indicative of a sentiment of the originality and untaintedness of early art, in regards to its connection to the eye of the creator. The artist himself declared that “In every work of art the subject is primordial”.
This concept, of the origin as pure and unpolluted, is definitely tricky and has the tendency to be skewed to fascistic rhetoric. It is clear that this was not the case for Giacometti, based on those whom he surrounded himself with (Sartre, DeBeauvoir, Bréton, Genet), therefore I believe that the case is existential — rather than political. Giacometti’s pollution is that of his subject, for the longer he sits with it, the less he sees. He speaks of working with a model for 5 years, and all that occurred was that “A head, became for me an object completely unknown and without dimensions”. A sculptor cannot finish a bust in a second. But, the more images that the eye captures and the more impressions it gains make it increasingly difficult to view the subject as they are.
If the subject becomes more and more muddy, it can only be because of the perception of the artist. It is the continuous process of mystification, of recognition, and identification that moves the creator further and further away from what he is truly seeing. Unless Giacometti himself also manages to return to the ‘primordial’ state of his works, he will stay stuck in the endless task of interpreting and identifying the world around him.
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