Paris, France — There are the skinny heads so characteristic of Alberto Giacometti’s skinny sculptures and there are the hidden, giant or partial heads, often brightly colored with layers of paint of the contemporary Syrian artist MARWAN on paper for both artists repeatedly represented the head in their works. Through its singular talent for juxtapositions, the Institut Giacometti in Paris has been exhibiting the works of the two artists side by side in an exhibition entitled Giacometti/Marwan Obsessions. They don’t just have heads in common. Both artists lived and worked in countries in which they were not born, the Swiss, Giacometti in France and the Syrian Marwan Kassab-Bachi, known as MARWAN, in Germany.  MARWAN, from 1985 until his death in Germany in 2016 at the age of 82, used the head as his only subject, prior to that his works featured scenes peopled with vulnerable and strange characters, figurative works of misshapen bodies and portraits of modern icons of the Arab world. 

The Institut Giacometti is part of the Fondation Giacometti devoted to exhibitions and research in art history and pedagogy. Alberto Giacometti’s mythical studio, whose elements in their entirety, had been kept by his widow, Annette Giacometti, is on permanent display at the Institute. Conferences, workshops and guided tours are all on the agenda with guided visits in English on Saturdays at 11am. The current exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue in a bilingual French/English edition. The Institute, which has an eclectic program of performances and conferences, is open Tuesdays to Sundays, from 11am until 6pm. The Obsessions exhibition is on until January 25th to be followed by a show devoted to a dialogue between the works of Giacometti and the contemporary Pakistani-American sculptor Huma Bhabha, opening on February 6th. https://www.fondation-giacometti.fr/en 5 rue Victor-Schoelcher, 75014 Paris, France, +33 (0)1 44 54 52 44. ©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette