The other artwork was made by Giacometti, whose idea for most of his elongated, distant, ghostly figures arose after he saw, again in a brothel , the young ladies who worked there presenting themselves to their clients.
For a long time, in fact, prostitution in brothel houses served as a source of inspiration for artists. Gauguin, Van Gogh or Toulouse-Lautrec were also known to frequent such places.
But to return to our subject, Alberto Giacometti was one of the most diligent practitioners of this aesthetic employment of prostitutes. It suited me.
Art, great art, has nothing to do with the narrow crucible of politically correct ideas. People are keen to present Giacometti as a sterilized artist who elegantly furnishes the interiors of billionaires, when he was in fact a complex being.
There are currently several opportunities around the world that might afford us a better understanding of this unconventional figure. Until 2 September the Beyeler Foundation is showcasing a subtle and unexpected dialogue between two monsters of twentieth-century art, the Irish artist F rancis Bacon and the Swiss sculptor himself.
