Gagosian is due to present in London an exhibition of sculptures by three titans of post-war and contemporary art with distinctive practices: Picasso, Giacometti and Bruce Nauman. It is the first time the trio’s sculptures have been shown together.
There have been numerous exhibitions and publications that consider Picasso and Giacometti together and one show, in Frankfurt in 2016, which paired Giacometti and Nauman. “I think people are going to be surprised and perceptions will be challenged. All three redefined sculpture and that in itself is a reason to bring them together,” says the curator Richard Calvocoressi who has worked with Gagosian on its historical shows for the past eight years.
Titled Body as Matter, the exhibition features around 60 works all rendered in either metal (cast iron, lead, steel and bronze) or plaster. “There’s a correspondence or unity of material among the three of them,” Calvocoressi says. Fragmented and disintegrated body parts typical of Picasso’s and Giacometti’s work are also prevalent—in Picasso’s Bras vertical (1961) or Giacometti’s La jambe (1958), for example. Other pieces include Nauman’s Henry Moore Bound to Fail (1967–70) and Model for Room with My Soul Left Out, Room that Does Not Care (1984).
Calvocoressi notes how Picasso’s “range of materials, his inventiveness and wit, seems to look forward to somebody like Nauman”. The curator also points out that Giacometti’s early Surrealist work from the 1920s and early 1930s, which is not featured in the Gagosian show, explores “sexual violence and threat—something that Nauman later picks up on, especially in his neon works”. The younger artist’s neons are also absent, however. “There’s the risk that the difference in medium might somehow overshadow or distract from the rest of the works by Picasso and Giacometti,” Calvocoressi says.
The exhibition has been put together from institutional loans together with a “small percentage” of works consigned for sale, according to a spokesman for the gallery, which works closely with both the Picasso family and the Giacometti Foundation, having staged numerous exhibitions by both artists over several decades. Picasso’s biographer John Richardson famously curated a series of hugely popular Picasso shows at Gagosian, while in 2019 Larry Gagosian himself organised an exhibition of Picasso masterpieces as a tribute to Richardson following his death. The gallery does not represent Nauman.
With museum-quality spaces and access to scholars such as Richardson and Calvocoressi, Gagosian has built a reputation for hosting institution-worthy exhibitions. Museum loans can also form the bedrock of these shows, though, as Calvocoressi points out, Gagosian is at liberty to move faster than most museums in putting a show together. “That’s what’s very impressive about working with a gallery like Gagosian,” Calvocoressi says, adding: “This exhibition probably raises more questions than it answers, but I think that’s a good thing.”
