One of the 20th century’s most important sculptors, Alberto Giacometti, is perhaps best known for his elongated emaciated figures that elicit feelings of isolation, mortality, and existential and perceptual crisis.
The Nasher Sculpture Center’s new exhibition, “The Women of Giacometti,” sheds new light on his process and choice of subject matter.
Comprised of approximately 48 sculptures and paintings, including Giacometti’s monumental “Woman of Venice” series, which has not been exhibited together in the United States since the 1950s, the exhibition thematically focuses on Giacometti’s representation of the female form – be it portraits of his wife, mother and lovers or anonymous and mnemonic depictions of a gendered human figure.
It is at the intersection of these two groups that the exhibition both succeeds and falls short.
By focusing on one generic category, like “women,” that spans the breadth of Giacometti’s career, the exhibition provides an avenue to watch the progression and development of his work.
In looking at similar objects we can see the same nose on “Rita” from 1937 and 22 years later in the “Bust of Paola,” 1959. Already evident in his 1926/27 plaster and bronze “Head of a Woman (Flora Mayo)” is Giacometti’s seemingly un-naturalistic treatment of the human head.
Could the flattened face on “Flora Mayo” not be seen as an early precursor to Giacometti’s surrealist women squares or narrowed heads of his mature, atrophied style?
While “The Women of Giacometti” can at times feel chronologically confusing with both upper and lower level galleries incongruously split into time frames that seem to circularly overlap, the ability to see early familial portraits executed in an impressionist manner, pre-WWII surrealist masterpieces and his mature-style postwar figures, not to mention paintings spanning 40 years, is quite eye-opening – especially with the Nasher-centric ability to see the object all the way around.
Where the exhibition seems to struggle is within its pre-established boundary: women. While providing a platform to investigate Giacometti’s work, one cannot help but wonder if it doesn’t bring with it unnecessary baggage. Giacometti had notoriously turbulent and complex relationships with women all his life.
Much of the Giacometti scholarship of the past 50 years has focused on his personal life as a means to better understand his art. After looking at the handful of women represented in “The Women of Giacometti,” one certainly grasps the importance they held in Giacometti’s life, but looking from sculpture to sculpture, one gets the overwhelming sense that the “women” are almost an indifferent afterthought.
In all of the pieces, whether from memory or a model, the focus is largely not about a specific person – they are about Giacometti and his exacting perception.
One does not gain a greater understanding about Giacometti’s wife, Annette, or model/lover Caroline from their “portraits,” with the possible exception of their possessed quality of patience. Further, in looking at one of the “Woman of Venice” sculptures or the “Bust of Paola,” feminine features are barely discernable.
While the show singles out Giacometti’s “women,” after looking at the pieces included in this exhibition, it seems evident that Giacometti had no singular attachment to the sex. His brother Diego casually posed just as Giacometti’s wife had, and male figures from the later part of Giacometti’s career carry many of the same physical and emotional characteristics as their female counterparts.
In the end, “The Women of Giacometti” is a tremendous success. It provokes interesting questions that move beyond perfunctory or glib correlations between Giacometti’s art and his personal life. Yes, women played highly important and influential roles, and yes, characteristic traits of particular women are often clearly discernable. But, what is most clearly view in this small but dense exhibition is the obsessive drive Giacometti had to recreate his uniquely perceived view in this small but dense exhibition is the obsessive drive Giacometti had to recreate his uniquely perceived world, both figuratively and literally.
This exhibit is on view until April 9 at the Nasher Sculpture Center, 2001 Flora St.
