Amazon.com Review Alberto Giacometti, the elegant catalog for a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, seeks to counter overly literary or psychological interpretations of an artist who has long been viewed as a poster boy for existentialism. The atmospheric black-and-white halftones and color plates are organized in closely interrelated, chronological groups to support texts by several experts, including Christian Klemm, curator of the Alberto Giacometti Foundation. By focusing on the work itself--which includes paintings and drawings as well as the famously slender, elongated sculptures--the authors emphasize his exquisitely calibrated response to the roles played by perception and memory. In the portraits, for example, networks of fine lines dematerialize a sitter's face yet preserve her essence. Anne Umland's intriguing discussion of the roles of photography and the fetish in Giacometti's surrealist-era sculpture is one of the many pleasures of this book. --Cathy Curtis Product Description Today, one hundred years after his birth and a generation after his death, Alberto Giacometti is recognized as one of the small group of modern masters who dominated art during much of the twentieth century. This centennial volume both celebrates his achievement and reexamines his work, and thus contributes to a more focused concentration on the art itself The importance of reassessing Giacometti's work resides not only in each new generation finding a somewhat different artist than its forebears, but also in that each fresh look tends to impede the spread of myths and generalizations that shield us from the complexities of a great artist's oeuvre. This publication is meant to extend popular and critical understanding of Giacometti's achievement and to return the reader to the center of Giacometti's work, where new insights can only be revealed by the objects themselves. From Booklist Giacometti is best known for the instantly recognizable sculpture of his mature period, his elongated, wraithlike figures, but these comprise only a small percentage of his complete oeuvre. This lavishly illustrated retrospective volume includes a large selection of overlooked paintings and drawings and evidence of the artist's early involvement with the surrealists in Paris, an interlude that often goes unnoticed. Klemm and his contributors present serviceable essays that examine how Giacometti's interest in portraiture, a form considered too representative, got him excommunicated from the surrealist cabal; the Freudian analysis of surrealism; and, in one of the most engaging discussions, Giacometti's relationship to phenomenology and existentialism. The chronology and brief discussion of periods in Giacometti's life and work are quite effective, perfectly complementing the comprehensive illustrations. Regina Schroeder Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved From the Publisher Exhibition Schedule: Kunsthaus Zürich, May 2001; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 2001 About the Author Christian Klemm is assistant director and curator of collections at the Kunsthaus Zürich and curator of the Alberto Giacometti Foundation. Carolyn Lanchner is a former curator at The Museum of Modern Art. Tobia Bezzola is curator at the Kunsthaus Zürich. Anne Umland is associate curator in the department of painting and sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Alberto Giacometti
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Author: Christian Klemm
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780810962200
Details:
Author: Christian Klemm
Binding: Hardcover
Number Of Pages: 296
Release Date: 01-12-2001
EAN: 9780810962200
Package Dimensions: 11.9 x 9.7 x 1.2 inches
Languages: English
