Giacometti / Dalí - Dream Gardens

Exhibition catalogue Giacometti / Dalí - Gardens of Dreams, presented at Giacometti Foundation, Paris (13 december 2022 - 8 april 2023).

Salvador Dalí (1904 –1989) discovered the work of Alberto Giacometti (1901 –1966) in 1930 at the Galerie Pierre in Paris, and considered the latter’s ‘Boule suspendue’ to be the perfect embodiment of an ‘object with a symbolic function’.

This exhibition was followed by an invitation for the Swiss sculptor to join the Surrealist circle centred around André Breton (1896 –1966). Giacometti subsequently became friends with the Catalan painter and the two engaged in a productive artistic dialogue, which this exhibition explores for the first time.

Dalí and Giacometti both imagined surreal places and drew up plans for gardens and squares. They also shared an interest in the world of decorative objects. To document the exchanges between them, this focused exhibition brings together an important series of different works in a variety of genres. One notable item is the first fullsize reconstruction of Giacometti’s Surrealist project for a public square, ‘Projet pour une place’ (1933), which is seen against the backdrop of his intense artistic dialogue with Dalí.