| "The Dog" 1951 |
"I haven't been yet,"I mumbled if someone mentioned "Alberto Giacometti" at Tate Modern. I was lying. I had no intention of going. I suffer from blockbuster fatigue; the thought of going to one of these huge, crowd drawing extravaganzas makes me sleepy. A show with some 250 drawings, paintings, sculptures and objects; selections from a half century of work by Giacometti did not lure me. And I like Giacometti once he stopped being a Surrealist. The artist who died in 1966 at the age of 65 was famous in his lifetime. He is more famous now. Add to this the multimillions for which his sculptures sell, and Tate Modern could expect many thousands of feet through its doors. My feet, however, were not going to the party. Or so I thought.
One sunny day last week when the weather was perfect for a cycle ride and I had no particular plans, I got on my bike and headed for Tate Modern. I have no idea why. I am pretty sure, however, that if it had been raining, I still would not have seen the exhibition. That would have been a big loss.
Sine my teens, I've been drawn to Giacometti's all-profile busts and skinny and all stretched out as if he'd been working with pizza dough. I have seen plenty of his work since. And yet this show was a revelation.
The organizers managed to raise the needed money to have many of his fragile plaster sculptures conserved and therefore fit to travel. The eight "Women of Venice," have not been on view since their initial display at the Venice Biennale in 1956, Many other plaster pieces have never been on public view, ever.
Room 5 in the exhibition is the first in which all the works are plaster. Most were done during or just after the WWII, I looked around me. It was as if I were meeting Giacometti for the first time--more than that, I felt that for the first I "got him," or anyway was beginning to.
White. The tall smooth walls are white. The 18 plaster statues in Room 5 are white or painted in very pale pinky/gold/ beige. In some, Giacometti went on to draw with paint on the surfaces. Usually, smooth they are not. Along one wall stands a single statue: "Woman on a Chariot" a female nude. Its base of wood is supported by four small wooden wheels. The other three walls are lined with illuminated built-in vitrines--the sort of display not uncommon when presenting jewels. That makes sense; everything on view behind the flat, glass panes is small or smaller--at least one full length figure is the height of the nail on my little finger. All this is both accurate and misleading. Measurements of this kind are of uniquely limited value when talking about the perception and impact of Giacometti's sculpture. Whatever the tape measure says, these works are monumental.
The painted plaster "Head of a Man" (above and below) measures "55 x 13 x 16 cm (21 x 5.14 x 6.2") including the base has more impact than "Standing Woman," for instance.. The giant bronze, in a gallery further along, at 272 cm high (just under 9 feet) would be eye to eye with any giraffe that wandered into the Tate. Impressive yes. Even memorable. Many dealers would not hesitate to call her iconic. For all that she doesn't lure the viewer into a journey enticed by where they have been, what they know and the desire to learn more.
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| Head of a Man 1948-50 |
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| Head of Diego c.1949 |
"Head of Diego" 1946 measures 11.8 x 6 x 8.3
(topping out at 4.6 inches). Like "Head of a Man" or more so it seems like a map of the world or--what the hell--even the cosmos. Maybe to calm down a little, it is better to say that each of these busts and full figure plaster statues, whatever the ruler has to say about them, seems to tell us so much--more than it is possible to take in on one meeting--about living and who knows maybe about the artist himself.
About the latter Giacometti would not agree. He acknowledged only one self-portrait. That bronze made in 1951 has so much appeal the Tate has reproduced the image on carrier bags, mugs and tee shirts in a choice of background colours available in its shops .
Half-a-dozen years after he created it, Alberto Giacometti told Jean Genet "One day I saw myself like that." That is "The Dog." The emaciated creature, lopes along, nose to the ground exhausted and charismatic. (See opening image.)
The show closes on September 10. I will keep going back wanting to see more of what he sniffed out.
