Alberto Giacometti – Femme Cullière (1927)

Louisiana poster with the work, Femme Cullière (1927), by the Swiss artist, Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966). Giacometti is a main character in the story of Louisiana and the Lady is central to that story, among the artist's many other iconic works in the museum.

After naturalistic portrait busts and painting, Giacometti in his early period worked in the form scheme of Cubism and from this originates, The Woman. You see how Giacometti, like many artists in Paris at this time—e.g. Picasso—is also influenced by African culture and the visual world.

Alberto Giacometti belongs to the artists who have influenced the art of the 20th century. Louisiana's collection of Giacometti figures is large, also internationally, and it is probably not least the interaction between Giacometti's figures and the museum's architecture that seems so special—and recognizable—to many of the museum's guests.

Giacometti's vision is characterized by a deep feeling for the basic human conditions—the isolation and loneliness of each being. His works open up when you make time for it, and at Louisiana, Giacometti's sculptures almost become a commentary on the museum visit itself—they are, after all, a kind of people in the rooms.

In both Giacometti's many busts and in the fully developed figures, it is the face that counts. The body is there, but it is not the main thing. It's the head. The gaze. As if the situation has been reversed and it is the sculptures that are looking at us.