Facing Infinity

This exhibition brings together the work of two of the most important exponents of 20th century art: Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. With a selection of works from their late oeuvres, ‘Facing Infinity’ opens new insights into the artists’ questioning of existence and their endless search for the relationship between figure and space.

When Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) moved to Paris in 1922 as a 20-year-old, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) had already become the predominant artistic presence in France. Picasso, cubism’s radical pioneer, quickly turned into a role model for the young Swiss artist Giacometti, who would soon become an integral part of the Parisian art scene himself. After observing Picasso from afar, Giacometti finally met him in person in 1931. A year later, Picasso was amongst the first visitors of Giacometti’s inaugural solo show in Paris. These initial interactions quickly developed into a deep artistic and intellectual friendship. From 1930 to the early 1950s, Picasso and Giacometti saw each other regularly, and in 1940 and 1941 almost daily. The two artists eventually had a falling out in the early 1950s and their intense artistic exchange ended abruptly. Yet, it is precisely in their late oeuvres that multi-layered connections between the two artists emerge.

Giacometti’s restless inquiries linger on the void between forms, the indivisibility of the human being and the question of proximity and distance. In his late work, such as ‘Tête noire (Dark Head)’ (1957 – 1962), Giacometti’s subject matter and color palette remained consistent: brown, grey, white and black. A painted frame surrounds each figure in which edges become blurred and undefined, and contours of the body parts vanish, transforming the figures into a dark mass. With these paintings, Giacometti investigated how to reduce the figure as far as possible while infusing it with power and significance. Jean-Paul Sartre described Giacometti’s works as floating ‘between being and nothingness, no transition is conceivable at all.’

Despite their different approaches in style and technique, the exhibition underlines how both artists experimented with pared-back representations of the face and figure. Picasso’s self-portrait from 2 July 1972, ‘Tête (Head)’, is one of the most moving pieces of his late career. The painter’s skull-like visage stares at its viewers, drawing their attention to the wide-set eyes. The face and shoulders are outlined with rapid but precise shading and highlights, demonstrating Picasso’s unique capacity to record profound thoughts with spontaneous gestures. ‘Tête (Head)’ is stripped back to its essentials in both content and form, conveying a dramatic feeling of urgency in the face of uncertainty.