Jean Genet’s L’Atelier d’Alberto Giacometti
Musical reading (60 min)
The Fondation opens its doors at 6:30 p.m., with free access to the Fondation until 7:30 p.m.
The musical reading will take place in the large gallery of the Fondation’s new spaces.
Seating: unreserved.
Free admission for children under 10, accompanied by an adult.
The Fondation’s restaurant, Sous les Pins, will be open after the event. Booking is recommended.
Tickets are non-refundable and cannot be modified.
Created by Aimé Maeght in 1946 to accompany exhibitions at his Paris gallery, Derrière le Miroir became one of the great publishing ventures of modern art. Each issue brought together the work of an artist and the writing of an author, often accompanied by original lithographs created especially for the publication. For more than thirty-five years, leading artists and writers — from Miró to Chagall, Braque to Giacometti, René Char to Samuel Beckett — came together within its pages, creating a dialogue between the arts.
Published in June 1957 to accompany Alberto Giacometti’s exhibition at the Galerie Maeght, issue No. 98 holds a particularly significant place in this history. It featured, for the first time, Jean Genet’s L’Atelier d’Alberto Giacometti, a text now regarded as one of the most important writings devoted to the artist.
Between 1954 and 1957, Jean Genet and Alberto Giacometti met regularly for long sittings. During this period, the artist created nine portraits of the writer. For his celebrated 1955 portrait, Genet sat for more than forty days—a testament to the rare trust and mutual attentiveness that characterised their relationship. From this prolonged encounter between two solitary figures emerged L’Atelier d’Alberto Giacometti: some thirty intense pages, at the crossroads of essay, intimate testimony and aesthetic meditation.
Within the Fondation’s exhibition spaces, actor and director Olivier Martinaud, a graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique, and multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer, arranger and producer Nicolas Repac bring Genet’s writings on Alberto Giacometti to life through a staged and musical reading. They explore the encounter between the two men and the profound admiration the writer held for the artist until the end of his life.
Production : garçon pressé, avec le soutien de la Fondation Giacometti et de la Maison de la Poésie
© Gallimard