TEL AVIV.- The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is opening a retrospective of Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966), one of the most renowned and influential artists of the 20th century. It will be the first time that a retrospective of the artist’s work has been held in Israel.

The exhibition, titled "Beginning, Again," will be a landmark cultural event bringing together 130 works from the collections of Fondation Giacometti, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The exhibition will span the four decades of Giacometti's career, from the early 1920s to the artist's death in 1966. It will feature a special selection from Giacometti's Surrealist period, as well as iconic plasters and bronzes, paintings, drawings, and prints, bringing the full scope of his practice into focus.

Among the works exhibited will be Walking Woman (1932), Point to the Eye (1931–32), Bust of Silvio (1945), Three Walking Men (1948), The Cage (1950), an ensemble of Woman of Venice (1956), and significant painted portraits. The show will be accompanied by an extensive bi-lingual catalogue in Hebrew and English.

Giacometti is best known for his painted portraits and distinctive sculptures created after World War II, including a series of elongated standing women, walking men, and expressive busts, which emerged at a time when many were grappling with feelings of postwar anxiety and a renewed interest in human nature. Giacometti's body of work reflects his investigations of the human figure and his repeated attempts to capture his experience of seeing, what he called "rendering my vision."

The exhibition follows the evolution of Giacometti's practice as he searched for means to manifest his visual sensations in his artwork. Reworking or discarding his efforts in an ongoing cycle of despair and perseverance, he displayed a fierce and ultimately affirmative commitment that the exhibition's title, "Beginning, Again," seeks to honor.

The exhibition presents a unique opportunity to experience the full range of Giacometti's art for the first time in Israel—which itself came of age in the same years as the artist's most creative period—in the context of the boldly modern, postwar aesthetics.

The exhibition will be open from May 6 to October 7, 2023, and inaugurate the new Eyal Ofer Pavilion, an extension of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art situated in the heart of the city's most dynamic cultural complex, which has recently undergone a substantial renewal project to restore the pavilion to its former status as one of the most iconic buildings in Tel Aviv.

The restoration of the 1470-sq.m. building was made possible through a generous donation from the Eyal and Marilyn Ofer Family Foundation, a worldwide philanthropic foundation supporting projects in healthcare, education, and the arts. The Foundation has also supported bringing the historic retrospective of Giacometti's work to Israel.Renowned for its modernist aesthetic, the pavilion was originally inaugurated in 1959 as the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, and Helena Rubinstein's past support will continue to be commemorated in the pavilion in perpetuity. The pavilion was originally designed by architects Dov Karmi, Ze'ev Rechter, and Yacov Rechter (Israel Prize laureate, 1972), whose son, Amnon Rechter, has led the current renovation.

The Eyal Ofer Pavilion is anticipated to be among the most striking exhibition spaces in Israel.