PRESS RELEASE
GIACOMETTI: Without End
Thursday, 13 March–Monday, 21 April 2014
Opening reception: Thursday, March 13th, from 6:00 to 9:00pm
Annette assise (petite), 1956, Bronze, 51.3 x 15.6 x 23.7 cm,
AP II/II, cast in 1981, Susse
Oh! the desire to do pictures of Paris, a little everywhere, there where life has led me, or would
leave me, the only way for all this my lithograph crayon, not painting or drawing, just this
crayon for capturing on the spot, with no chance of ever erasing or revising, my first
impressions.
—Alberto Giacometti
Gagosian Hong Kong is pleased to present Alberto Giacometti’s complete suite of lithographs
Paris sans fin (Paris without end) together with key sculptures, paintings, drawings,
photographs, and archival material from the same period, shedding new light on the creation of
one of the major artist’s books of the twentieth century.
From the 1930s until his death in 1966, Giacometti continuously investigated the possibilities of
accurately representing what he saw before him. “Giacometti: Without End” celebrates his
favorite city and people in 150 lithographs with text, produced for a diaristic artist’s book
between 1959 and 1965. The initial maquette, as well as rare lithographs and drawings intended
for the book, are exhibited here for the first time. Also on view are several important bronze
sculptures, including Diego (tête au col roulé) (c. 1954) and Annette assise (petite) (1956); and
paintings such as Caroline (1965). Original manuscripts and a selection of photographic portraits
by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eli Lotar, Jack Nisberg, and others provide a contextual backdrop for
this book project that occupied Giacometti for nearly six years.
Giacometti’s major undertaking was spurred and encouraged by the publisher Tériade, a close
friend and supporter from the time he singled the artist out thirty years earlier in his role as art
critic. Just prior to this, Tériade produced Fernand Léger’s La Ville, a book of lithographs that
also took the city as its subject. Unlike Léger’s urban labyrinths, Giacometti’s impressions are a
shorthand visual account of his daily life—in the studio and in cafés, on the grands boulevards,
at the printer Mourlot’s new shop—that demonstrate his unassuming virtuosity. As Mourlot
recalled, the range of grey tones that imbue these illustrations with the foggy haze of the city is
itself a technical feat.
As in his previous lithographic work, Giacometti did not draw directly onto limestone, as is the
traditional method, but onto thin sheets of transfer paper, allowing for easier portability and a
more accurate reproduction of the original drawing. He characterized the series as “images and
memories of images,” an apt description of the volatile, fleeting scenes: intersections jammed
with cars are depicted alongside crisscrossing electric cables and elevated railways; historic
buildings surrounded by these symbols of change are rendered in nearly flat perspective.
Giacometti’s immediate approach treats a grand montage of models and unfinished works in the
solitude of the studio; friends and family in motion; the towers of Saint Sulpice; and the
Boulevard Montparnasse, where he frequented the Dome and Sélect brasseries. This grayscale
conflation of past and present, old and new, is reflected in his contemplative notes, written to
accompany the drawings in the twilight of his life:
The silence, I’m alone here, outside there’s the night, everything is still and sleep is
starting to return. I don’t know who I am nor what I’m doing nor what I want, I don’t
know if I’m old or young, maybe I’ve got hundreds of thousands of years to live, my past
is disappearing into a grey abyss…
The exhibition, curated by Veronique Wiesinger, is accompanied by a fully illustrated book and
has been organized in collaboration with Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris.
Alberto Giacometti was born in Borgonovo, Switzerland in 1901 and died in Chur, Switzerland in
1966. Public collections include Kunsthaus Zürich; Tate Gallery, London; MUMOK, Vienna;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. Selected recent
exhibitions include Kunsthaus Zürich (2001); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2001); Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris (2007–08); Kunsthal Rotterdam (2008); Pushkin Museum, Moscow
(2008); Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel (2009); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2010, traveled to
Museum der Moderne Mönchsberg, Salzburg, through 2011); and Musée de Grenoble (2013).
“Giacometti. La scultura” will be on view at Galleria Borghese, Rome, through May 25, 2014.
Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti was established in 2003 to promote and preserve the
artist’s work.
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