LONDON.- From May 2025, the Barbican Centre, London, will partner with Fondation Giacometti, Paris, for a series of three groundbreaking exhibitions taking place over the course of a year. The exhibitions bring together the practices of three contemporary artists known for their originality and ingenuity, alongside historic works by the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966). Staged in a newly established, intimate exhibition space within the Barbican, the series launches on 8 May 2025 with an exhibition by Huma Bhabha, followed by Mona Hatoum on 4 September 2025 and Lynda Benglis in February 2026.
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Each artist will present a mix of pre-existing and new artworks which resonate with and at times respond directly to Giacometti’s sculptures, opening up new intergenerational connections and dialogues. Following a period of deep engagement with Giacometti’s work at Fondation Giacometti, each artist has been closely involved in the selection of works by the artist to include in their exhibition. It is the first time that Bhabha, Hatoum and Benglis’s sculptures will be seen alongside Giacometti’s works. Each iteration of this series will feature a different group of works by Giacometti including iconic pieces like The Walking Man I (1960) and The Cage (1950).
Giacometti is one of the most significant European sculptors of the 20th century, known for his distinctive, elongated sculptures which experiment with the human form. Some of the most stirring works in his oeuvre were created in the same post-war period in which the Barbican was built. Perceived sometimes as responding to the pain and devastation caused by the Second World War, his works proposed a new perspective on humanity and the collective psyche. This radicality resonates with the utopian principles underpinning the establishment of the Barbican, which sought to explore a new way of thinking and being where the arts were regarded as vital and central to enriching modern living.
Visitors to these exhibitions will observe the exchanges between contemporary art practices and Giacometti’s work that complicate simple interpretations of artistic influence and formal likeness. The invited artists have shared interests in death, fragmentation, the domestic, memory, trauma, the erotic, horror and humour – and manifest their preoccupations in vastly different ways through their own work. It is the exploration of these timeless and existential concerns that forms the connecting threads between the three living artists and Giacometti. Each exhibition considers what occurs at the meeting point of bodies of work that are deeply affective and emotive, responding to the anguish and despair of a wounded world.
Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican, says: “Continuing our commitment to expanding the possibilities of how the visual arts can be experienced at the Barbican, Encounters: Giacometti marks a significant new chapter. Through our partnership with the Fondation Giacometti, we are able to stage a series of exhibitions which explore the formal affinities and thematic resonances between the iconic works of Alberto Giacometti and three of today’s most extraordinary and important artists. While confronting not only the precariousness and vulnerability of our corporeal being, we hope that these ‘encounters’ remind us of a shared enduring humanity.”
Émilie Bouvard, director of collections at the Fondation Giacometti, says: “This collaboration with the Barbican Centre is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to confront Giacometti’s creation with this unique cultural space whose architecture owes so much to the 1950s. Remembering the past, it looks also towards the present, proving once again the fecundity of Giacometti’s creation for today’s living artists, on the solid grounds of human figure, mankind, dream and engagement.”
Each of the three exhibitions will be £8 to visit and will take place in a new exhibition space within the Barbican. This exciting new space will be used flexibly for a range of purposes in the coming years, allowing the Barbican to continue offering a world-class experience for its visitors as it undergoes vital work on different areas of its building.
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