Alberto Giacometti—Beyond Bronze

Alberto Giacometti—Beyond Bronze

Masterworks in Plaster and Other Materials

Plaster, plasticine, marble, wood: new light shed on Giacometti's approach to his artistic media.

Disponible aussi en français.

 

 

Title Information

Edited by Kunsthaus Zürich. With essays by Philippe Büttner, Casimiro Di Crescenzo, Catherine Grenier, Tobias Haupt, Christian Klemm, Kerstin Mürer, and Stefan Zweifel

1st edition

, 2016

Hardback

240 pages, 224 color and 36 b/w illustrations

22 x 27 cm

ISBN 978-3-85881-785-3

Content

Although he is best known for his signature bronze sculptures, Alberto Giacometti (1901–66) worked in a variety of other media such as marble, plaster, and wood. Plaster was of particularly great importance to Giacometti’s work. It offered many advantages as a medium, the foremost being that it allowed the artist to rework or repaint his sculptures in a variety of ways. More than an intermediate stage between clay model and bronze cast, plaster was therefore often regarded by Giacometti as a primary medium, and many of his works exist only in plaster.

Alberto Giacometti—Beyond Bronze is based on a gift by Bruno Giacometti of seventy-five plaster sculptures to Kunsthaus Zürich, where they have been extensively restored and researched. With more than two hundred illustrations, including many in large format and full color, the book features masterpieces from every stage of Giacometti’s career. Apart from the book’s main focus—the place of plaster in the artist’s oeuvre—it also includes works in marble, bronze, and wood. Together, these sculptures show how Giacometti approached the material properties of the different media and offer insight into the creative process of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists.

Published to accompany a major exhibition at Kunsthaus Zürich, Alberto Giacometti—Beyond Bronze celebrates a lesser-known, yet fundamentally important aspect of the artist’s work.

 

Deutsche Ausgabe

Edition française

Authors & Editors

Philippe Büttner

, born 1961 in Basel, is art historian and curator of the permanent collection at  Kunsthaus Zürich since 2011. He has before been working as a reserach assistant (2000–03) and as a curator (2003–11) at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen near Basel.

Casimiro Di Crescenzo

 is a scholar of art history and Giacometti expert.

Catherine Grenier

 is director of Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti in Paris.

Tobias Haupt

 works as a restorer at Kunsthaus Zürich.

Christian Klemm

, born 1946, is a scholar of art history. After working at Kunsthalle Baden-Baden 1979–80 and Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf 1980–81, he has been curator of Kunsthaus Zürich's permanent collection 1982–2011 and the museum's deputy director 1995–2011. He is director of the Zürich-based Alberto Giacometti Foundation.

Kerstin Mürer

 works as a restorer at Kunsthaus Zürich.

Stefan Zweifel

, born 1967, lives and works as a philosopher, writer, and freelance curator in Zurich.