During the holiday period, three exhibitions visited our capital city, which are definitely worth the attention of every art lover. An attractive exhibition of French Impressionists from the collection of the Danish Ordrupgaard Art Museum is currently underway in the Kinský Palace on the Old Town Square, in the Kampa Museum you can admire the photographs of the famous German-Australian photographer Helmut Newton under the title In Dialog, but perhaps the biggest highlight is the retrospective exhibition of one of the most important artists 20th century, Swiss sculptor and painter Albert Giacometti in Fair Market Palace in Prague's Holešovice.
Alberto Giacometti was born in Borgono, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. He came from an artistic family. His father Giovanni was a famous post-impressionist painter. Alberto was the eldest of four children and had a very close relationship with his brother Diego, who later became a frequent model for his sculptural work. He studied art first in Geneva and then in Paris with Antoine Bourdelle. In Paris, he began experimenting with Cubism and Surrealism. He collaborated with Joan Miró, Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso. He became a good friend of the writer Jean-Paul Sartre, whose existentialism had a significant influence on his work. During World War II, he retreated to Switzerland for a while, where he met his future wife, Anette Armová, but after its end, he returned to Paris, where he died in 1966. The main subject of Giacometti's work was the human figure. He was mainly famous for his existentially urgent elongated figures, which can also be seen at the Prague exhibition. Busts and portraits depicting the brothers Diego and Bruno are repeated in many variations, but each time in a new and interesting way. Giacometti himself explains in a profile document within the exhibition why he works with the same models over and over again. Many different models are said to break up the artist's work. He is convinced that to capture the truth it is important to work with only a small number of models, but rather to see them from a different perspective each time. He sees his sculptures as an ever-living process and considers them unfinished. In addition to his poor physical health, Giacometti also suffered from bad nightmares, which are represented by a hanging bronze head with a long nose. This visualized idea haunted him from a traumatic experience in 1921, when he witnessed the death of a friend Pieter van Muers, whom he had met on his travels. According to the author, the nose continues to grow from the head, despite the fact that the body to which it belongs has already lost life. But within the framework of the exhibition, the visitor will not only encounter large sculptures. Giacometti was known primarily for changing the size and perspective of his figures, which is why we also come across a number of miniature figures and figures here. And, of course, we must not forget his paintings, which are a great rarity to see, because he generally presents himself in the world as a sculptor. But in the Trade Fair Palace we suddenly have the opportunity to see its enormous versatility in a comprehensive form. In short, the visitor has a lot to look forward to, and the good news is that this unique exhibition will last until December 2019. This important cultural achievement is another pleasant surprise that brought Prague closer to other European capitals and saved us long trips to Vienna's Albertina for art. And the organizers of the exhibition are to be thanked for that.
Text: Vladimír Dubeň
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