(Giacometti is often labeled as a Post-Dada sculptor)
(Much of the following history is excerpted from Wikipedia, though I've edited where beneficial)
Life and Career:
(October 10, 1901 – January 11, 1966)
Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman, and printmaker; born in Borgonovo (Switzerland), near the Italian border. His father Giovanni was a painter. Alberto attended the School of Fine Arts in Geneva.
In 1922 he moved to Paris to study under a sculptor who was an associate of Auguste Rodin. It was there that Giacometti experimented with cubism and surrealism and came to be regarded as one of the leading surrealist sculptors. Among his associates were Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso and Balthus. In 1962, Giacometti was awarded the grand prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale, and the award brought with it, worldwide celebrity.
Process:
Even when he had achieved popularity and his works were in demand, he still reworked models, often destroying them or setting them aside to be returned to, years later. From 1936 - 1940, Giacometti's sculpture focused on the human head (primarily on the model's gaze). However, that was followed by a unique artistic phase in which his statues became stretched out; their limbs elongated. Obsessed with creating his sculptures exactly as he envisioned through his unique view of reality, he often carved until they were as thin as nails and reduced to the size of a pack of cigarettes, much to his consternation. A friend of his once said that if Giacometti decided to sculpt you, "he would make your head look like the blade of a knife." After marrying his wife, his tiny sculptures became larger; but the larger they grew, the thinner they became. Giacometti said that the final result represented the sensation he felt when he looked at a woman.
Analysis of Giacometti's Style:
Giacometti was a key player in the Surrealist Movement, but his work resists any easy categorization. Some describe it as formalist, others argue it is expressionist or otherwise having to do with what Deleuze calls 'blocs of sensation' (as in Deleuze's analysis of Francis Bacon). Even after his excommunication from the Surrealist group... the end products (of his sculpture) were an expression of his emotional response to the subject. (In a way,) Giacometti attempted to create renditions of his models the way he saw them, and the way he thought they ought to be seen. He once said that he was sculpting... not the human figure, but "the shadow that is cast."
Scholar William Barrett in Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1962), argues that the attenuated forms of Giacometti's figures reflect the view of 20th century modernism and existentialism, that modern life is increasingly devoid of meaning, and empty.
( --- also, I have no idea who the following [wikipedia] statements are supposed to be from, though they might be from Giacometti, himself: "All the sculptures of today, like those of the past, will end one day in pieces... So it is important to fashion ones work carefully in its smallest recess and charge every particle of matter with life." ----)
(end of Wiki bio. info.)
In my opinion:
Giacometti has become a bit of a cult hero in the new Millenium, with images of the artist and his work featured in numerous modern video creations which can be viewed on the internet, at YouTube.
Furthermore, it is my opinion that Giacometti's verbal dialogues were often ambiguous and contained an element of the enigmatic, much like his artwork usually did, probably in the interest of causing a "minor stir" in the audience. For instance, he would talk about how the longer a model would sit for him, the more that person's face, but even his/her humanistic being, would merge into that of the "everyman"; even his own wife, he would state, began to become "unknown" to him, as an actual person, the more she would sit and model for him in the studio.
Whether he actually believed all these strange things that he would say, or not, doesn't really matter too much, and moreover, it all just adds to the "charm" if his personality. That may be a good way of describing him, that he was a "charmer", but in the magical sense, also. I pretty much believe that he was interested in sounding interesting, and the more one thinks this sort of acting-out can be useful and amusing, the more it changes you permanently in that direction. In other words, Giacometti's approach to speaking about his work could have made him fundamentally more eccentric and interesting, in the extreme - he basically changed himself into a more and more interesting person, because he may have begun to believe so much of the "wild" things he had to say about his work, and life in general.
Artchive's Brief Summation:
Giacometti was originally a surrealist sculptor, but returns to recognizable figural art, whose tortured surface suggests the tortured emotions of modern man. ~ Artchive
Website: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/giacometti.html
"Alberto Giacometti and a sculpture"Alberto Giacometti vers 1955,
entouré de bustes de son frère Diego,
son modèle le plus constant -
Image Copyright © 2006 Estate of Alberto Giacometti - Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris
(cf. Les Ateliers du Mac - Alberto Giacometti )
The following image of a sculpture group, I feel, is a hallmark for much of what the artist communicated. Just one aspect of these messages is relative to the world and our temporal occupation of "all this space" which surrounds us.
Alberto GiacomettiThe Piazza
Bronze
1948-49
It is, however, highly problematic, in my opinion (Wayne's), to even attempt to verbally describe how Giacometti's art touchs the audience.
Still, it might be rarely determined that a certain writer might approach Giacometti's vision with a certain alacrity. The following links are to a blogger and philosophy professor, whose musings on Giacometti's art I found I was not "too opposed to"... "taking in to myself".
http://www.blogger.com/profile/13201959632754013134
http://ideasofimperfection.blogspot.com/2005/07/thin-men_11.html
(the following may have led me to the above fan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rd6rGshfPM
Additionally, at YouTube, there is a video (rather "slow starting" in it's approach) which is about Giacometti's vision. This video offers one writer's heart-felt opinions about the artist, which are seemingly taken from a textbook; the reading itself is given to us by the maker of the video (I assume). This critical inspection itself is actually, highly poetic, and maybe even, rather charming, especially considering that it is about Giacometti's work which is so "dark", so often.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQRpoVcvy7Q&feature=related
So much of Alberto's ability to grab the attention of the viewer is caught up in the interesting motion of his "moving" figures. What does this ever-present "motion" symbolize? I think it should be left up to each individual fan, and may even be better off if this all goes unspoken.
Still, the following image of "the artist at work" may hint at some ambiguos and/or enigmatic implication.
Photograph of Alberto Giacometti
by Henri Cartier-Bresson
Giacometti, Alberto
"LHomme qui Marche II" (?)
Type: Reproduction
Rubrique: Courant Stylistique Art Contemporain
Format (cm): 80 x 60
Image Copyright © 2006
Estate of Alberto Giacometti
Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris
(cf. Postershop.fr - Alberto Giacometti )
It is my impression that Giacometti's singular walking figures (such as the images that surround this statement) are much of what left his indelible imprint on humanity's subconscious (at least, those whom have experienced the artist's powerful work).
Giacometti, Alberto
"LHomme qui Marche" (?)
Type: Reproduction
Rubrique: Courant Stylistique Art Contemporain
Format (cm): 80 x 60
Image Copyright © 2006
Estate of Alexander Calder
Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris
(cf. Postershop.fr - Alberto Giacometti )
Other info. to be investigated?:
http://www.chess-theory.com/encprd03238_chess_practice_reflections_debates_arts.php
(end of introductory blog)
