ALBERTO GIACOMETTI Woman With Chariot January 31 To April

ALBERTO GIACOMETTI Woman With Chariot January 31 To April

EXHIBITION
Of the
Foundation
Wilhelm
Lehmbruck
Museum,
Center of
International
Sculpture,
With the
Fondation
Alberto
Museums
ALBERTO
GIACOMETTI
FOUNDATION WILHELM LEHMBRUCK MUSEUM –
CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL SCULPTURE
Friedrich-Wilhelm-Str. 40 D-47051 Duisburg, Germany
Phone +49 (0)203 283-3294 /-2630
Fax +49 (0)203 283-3892
[email protected] www.lehmbruckmuseum.de
500 m from the central station
ADMISSION
Single admission: € 8/5, families: € 15
Children accompanied by relatives: free
Groups, minimum of 15 persons: € 5 p. p.
Guided tours: € 45 to 75 (available in English, Dutch,
French, Italian)
OPENING HOURS:
Tue – Sat 11 a. m. – 5 p. m.
Sun 10 a. m. – 6 p. m., closed on Mondays
RESERVATION AND INFORMATION
Educational services
Phone +49 (0)203 283-2195 or [email protected]
Duisburg,
In Cooperation
Anfahrtsskizze, genaue Adresse und Kommunikationsdaten des
Price at the museum:
ca. € 25
Retail price
(Hirmer, Munich):
ca. € 34.90
Copyright for pictured artworks by Alberto Giacometti at ADAGP/Succession Giacometti, Paris,
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009
Et Annette
Giacometti,
Paris
Kulturpartner
Title picture: Alberto Giacometti · Femme au chariot/Woman with Chariot · ca. 1945
Foundation Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Center of International Sculpture, Duisburg · photo © 2009 Britta Lauer, Duisburg
An
CATALOGUE
Hardcover, ca. 224 pages,
ca. 230 plates, 150 in color,
edited by
Gottlieb Leinz and
Véronique Wiesinger,
with texts by
Stephan Balkenhol,
Christoph Brockhaus,
Annamaria Pucci Corbetta,
Carol Jacobi,
Jacques Vistel
Gottlieb Leinz,
Véronique Wiesinger.
Includes an illustrated
index of exhibits,
a bibliography, and
a biography.
Ernst Scheidegger · Artist’s studio in Maloja (Switzerland) · around 1959 · photo: © 2009 Neue Zürcher Zeitung
The EXHIBITION
is curated by
Gottlieb Leinz and
Véronique Wiesinger.
Als Logos erscheinen: Lehmbruck-Museum, Fondation
WomanGiacometti, Siemens, Land NRW, Kulturstiftung der Länder, Pro Helvetia
With
Chariot
January 31
To
April 18
2010
Wilhelm
Lehmbruck
Museum
Duisburg
The near life-size sculpture Woman with Chariot was created
ca. 1945. It is the only plaster sculpture by Alberto Giacometti
(1901—1966) held by a German museum that illustrates in a
detailed manner the sculptor’s artistic signature and working
method. It was acquired by the Lehmbruck Museum in 1986
thanks to funds from the Peter Klöckner Foundation. Giacometti
created the work during the war. Forced to remain away from
Paris he was working in Geneva and Maloja, Switzerland. In
contrast to the miniature, fragile plaster figures Giacometti
was creating at the time, Woman with Chariot is the only large
sculpture from this period of reorientation in his work with
figures. For the first time, he achieved a “wholeness of figure”
in which closeness and vision are united.
The woman stands frontally, her arms at her sides and her legs
tightly together, on a solid cubic pedestal, which for its part
is resting on a low wooden dolly. The motif of the chariot that
the work introduces is crucial to the figure’s effect and significance: stillness and liveliness, distance and contact, create a
dramatic dialogue of opposing forces. In its unusual liveliness,
the Woman with Chariot, which Giacometti gave to his friend
the doctor Serafino Corbetta, is a key to the entire artistic
production that followed. Sculptures, drawings and photographs—most of them from the artist’s estate in the Alberto
et Annette Giacometti Foundation in Paris—elucidate this
critical phase of change. The exhibition impressively showcases
the progression from the small-format sculptural miniatures
to the normative size of the innovative Woman with Chariot—
elongated greatly in height—and on to the Femme Leoni of 1947.
Only recently has it been shown that Giacometti, as he had
previously done in other works, was depicting in the Woman
with Chariot his muse, the English painter Isabel Nicholas.
As Isabel Rawsthorne she would later sit for Francis Bacon as
well. Giacometti complemented the delicate figure with the
motif of the wheeled wagon, which he would later interpret
entirely differently in the large Chariot of 1950—a second version
of the Woman with Chariot. This two-wheeled “wagon” is
reminiscent of an ancient battle chariot but even more of the
cultic sun chariot and of ceremonial artifacts of Celtic origin,
which have not a warrior but a woman or even the sun standing elevated on a chariot. This mythic element, whose central
importance dates back to ancient Egyptian death rituals, lends
Ernst Scheidegger · Tête de cheval/ Head of Horse
by Alberto Giacometti at his Paris studio · 1951 · photo: © 2009 Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Alberto Giacometti · Chariot/Chariot · 1950 · The Museum of Modern Art, New York
photo: © 2009 Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence
Alberto Giacometti · Petite figurine/Small Figurine · ca. 1945–1946 · private collection
© 2009 Fondation Giacometti, Paris · photo: V. W.
Alberto Giacometti · Tête d’Isabel/Head of Isabel · 1936 · Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris
© 2009: Fondation Giacometti, Paris· photo: Marc Domage
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI
WOMAN WITH CHARIOT
TRIUMPH AND DEATH
the sculpture a magical character in the cycle of triumph and
death. It resembles a memorial for the living and the dead,
one whose various levels of meaning Giacometti consciously
worked with. For the first time, both chariot sculptures are
being shown at this exhibition together with the work complexes
of which they are a part. This allows for new interpretations
of even the better-known works to be tested. Particularly instructive is a comparison of the second chariot with Giacometti’s
studies on horses and riders, a theme in the artist’s oeuvre that
has so far not been afforded attention. One of the studies is
a near life-size horse-couple modeled in plaster which stood in
Giacometti’s studio for an extended period of time. Although
the final sculpture was never carried out, the exhibition shows
that the study was documented many times, confirming once
again the overarching importance of photography to Giacometti.