Peter Lindbergh, the fashion photographer celebrated for championing supermodels’ imperfections, has carried out a very novel and exciting collaboration – with one of the titans of 20th-century sculpture.
Alberto Giacometti’s starkly silhouetted sculptures and knife-headed busts, which have become so familiar to so many, are now on show at Gagosian’s Britannia Street outpost as you have never seen them before. In their portraits by Lindbergh, they are shown close-up, blown-up. Their rawness distilled by light, they are immediate and brought to life by a spark in the eye or a blur of focus. They appear scarred, brutalised, yet alive, with what Lindbergh calls their ‘perfect imperfections’.
The German photographer, who has had numerous Vogue covers and won awards for his cinematic filmmaking, was invited by the Kunsthalle, Zurich to make the series in 2016. The Kunsthalle owns the largest Giacometti collection in the world and wanted to challenge people with fresh ways of looking at a vitally important body of work, which the public may have become too familiar or too comfortable with.
Amazingly Lindbergh says he didn’t know a lot about Giacometti when he made his first visit to meet his unusual new models. ‘When I arrived and gathered the Giacometti busts and bronzes into a group I had the feeling that they’re not objects, or sculptures, they’re alive, talking to each other like a group of school children. I kept asking myself, how is that possible?’
Installation view of ‘Substance and Shadow’ at Gagosian
He continues: ‘So much of that one man is in there. You feel that his life is in there. Intuitively I began to imagine what Giacometti was doing and thinking. What I wanted to capture was the relation between him and the object.’
Pointing to one of the most powerful images in the series, of Buste de Diego (1964-5), I suggest to Lindbergh that Giacometti wasn’t interested in portraiture so much as capturing the experience of life emerging from and vanishing into space.
‘But that’s exactly like portraiture!’ he exclaims. ‘Sometimes I show a photograph to somebody and they go, “That’s him! You’ve captured him!” I say that’s impossible. How can anyone do that? He is so complex this person, and tomorrow he will be a completely different person.
Lindbergh muses, ‘A photograph has nothing to do with the person you are photographing. It has to do with what comes out of the person when you’re with them, and what you can give them.’
Alberto Giacometti, Buste de Diego (vers 1964-1965), Zurich, 2016, by Peter Lindbergh, 2016. © The artist and Succession Alberto Giacometti.
Installation view of ‘Substance and Shadow’ at ‘Substance and Shadow’ at Gagosian’s Brittania Street outpost
Alberto Giacometti, Femme debout (Poseuse I) (1954), Zurich, 2016, by Peter Lindbergh, 2016. © The artist and Succession Alberto Giacometti.
INFORMATION
‘Substance and Shadow’ is on view until 22 July. For more information, visit the Gagosian website
ADDRESS
-
A new Athens gallery is a celebration of old and new, a stone's throw from the AcropolisNew Athens gallery Melas Martinos by Local Local is a contemporary art space, a stone's throw from the Acropolis, in the Greek capital's Monastiraki neighbourhood
-
Haute Couture Week A/W 2025: live updates from the Wallpaper* teamFrom 7-9 July, Haute Couture Week A/W 2025 arrives in Paris. Follow along for a first look at the shows, presentations and other fashion happenings, as seen by the Wallpaper* editors
-
Boundaries between art and life dissolve in Katherine Hubbard's intimate documentation of her mother's illnessIn 'The Great Room', Katherine Hubbard merges caregiving for her mother with an unflinching documentary of the process
-
Leila Bartell’s cloudscapes are breezily distorted, a response to an evermore digital world‘Memory Fields’ is the London-based artist’s solo exhibition at Tristan Hoare Gallery (until 25 July 2025)
-
A bespoke 40m mixed-media dragon is the centrepiece of Glastonbury’s new chill-out areaNew for 2025 is Dragon's Tail – a space to offer some calm within Glastonbury’s late-night area with artwork by Edgar Phillips at its heart
-
Emerging artist Kasia Wozniak’s traditional photography techniques make for ethereal imagesWozniak’s photographs, taken with a 19th-century Gandolfi camera, are currently on show at Incubator, London
-
Vincent Van Gogh and Anselm Kiefer are in rich and intimate dialogue at the Royal Academy of ArtsGerman artist Anselm Kiefer has paid tribute to Van Gogh throughout his career. When their work is viewed together, a rich relationship is revealed
-
Alice Adams, Louise Bourgeois, and Eva Hesse delve into art’s ‘uckiness’ at The CourtauldNew exhibition ‘Abstract Erotic’ (until 14 September 2025) sees artists experiment with the grotesque
-
What is recycling good for, asks Mika Rottenberg at Hauser & Wirth MenorcaUS-based artist Mika Rottenberg rethinks the possibilities of rubbish in a colourful exhibition, spanning films, drawings and eerily anthropomorphic lamps
-
Get lost in Megan Rooney’s abstract, emotional paintingsThe artist finds worlds in yellow and blue at Thaddaeus Ropac London
-
Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekIt was a jam-packed week for the Wallpaper* staff, entailing furniture, tech and music launches and lots of good food – from afternoon tea to omakase
