Exhibition tip: Giacometti in Brühl – the connection to surrealism

Cologne | As of today, the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl is showing an exhibition with over 70 works by the sculptor and draftsman Alberto Giacometti (1901 to 1966). The occasion is “100 Years of Surrealism” and refers to the 1930s in Paris, when Giacometti moved in circles of the Parisian Surrealists. The Brühl show on the outskirts of Cologne was organized in collaboration with the Fondation Giacometti, Paris.

A private sculptor

The Brühl exhibition is dedicated to this creative phase of the sculptor. A sculptor who only came to the attention of a larger public in recent decades. Artists have always been fascinated by Giacometti's work, his delicate drawings and his figures in their idiosyncratic, particularly condensed formal language, which are reduced to the essential in order to truly understand the form. This reduction of how the world appears to us to the absolutely necessary, the essential – reduced to a sign – shows Giacometti's search for the absolute in art. He did not cling to formal attitudes such as familiar proportions, but rather the proportions in his works are correct.

The Max Ernst Museum in Brühl is now examining this fascinating artist. The exhibition was curated by Dr. Friederike Voßkamp, ​​​​the head of the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl's collections, and Laura Bravermann, the curator of the Fondation Giacometti in Paris. Max Ernst and Giacometti met in Paris in 1929 and worked in neighboring studios. In 1930, the surrealist took Giacometti in. The reason was his work “Boule suspednue” – “Floating Ball”. In 1935, however, the surrealists excluded Giacometti again. Giacometti invited Ernst to his Swiss hometown of Maloja, where they both worked sculpturally with granite from the moraines of the Forno Glacier.

The Brühl exhibition shows major works from Giacometti's oeuvre. Among others, the following are on display:
• Le Couple (The Couple, 1926)
• Femme cuillère (Spoon Woman, 1927)
• Boule suspension (floating ball, 1930)
• Objet désagréable (Unpleasant Object, 1931)
• Le Nez (The Nose, 1949)
• La Cage, world premiere (The Cage, first version, 1949–1950).

Works by Max Ernst will also be on display. The museum will show the close connection between the two artists. Photographs will also be shown. The exhibition will be on display from September 1, 2024 to January 15, 2025 in the LVR's Max Ernst Museum Brühl.

Alberto Giacometti

Albert Giacometti was born in Switzerland on October 10, 1901. In 1922, Giacometti moved to Paris, where he studied sculpture. In 1926, he moved into his small studio at 46 Rue Hippolyte-Maindron, which he kept until his death. From 1930 to 1935, Giacometti was part of the Surrealists. Then he returned to working from nature and was excluded. During the Second World War, Giacometti lived in Switzerland again. After the war, he created his elongated and slender sculptures. In 1962, Giacometti was awarded the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale. Shortly before his death, the Tate Gallery in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York showed retrospectives of his work. On January 11, 1966, Alberto Giacometti died in hospital in Chur.