CERCLE 9

14 time unaffected. I sincerely believe that the exhibition that we’re present at the Prado is another example of the transcendence of a work that can withstand the evolution of time, as well as potential temporary philosophical ascriptions. One of the things that most impressed me when we were putting the exhibition together was undoubtedly the feeling that the mineral and elongated, almost archaeological, presence of Giacometti's works gave the impression that they had always been there wherever we placed them in the different rooms of the Prado. Faced with works of ‘classical’ painters such as Velázquez, El Greco, Tintoretto or Zurbarán, Giacometti's works resist confrontation with the past, and that’s why they transcend any concrete philosophical qualification and offer us a constantly timeless rereading. Giacometti represents the image of the artist eternally dissatisfied to a great extent. Do you think that he ever came to feel pleased or appeased at some point in his life? No, and I think that dissatisfaction was in some way the engine for his work. A body of work that will soon be 80 years old, but of an overwhelming relevance today... was Giacometti a visionary? The timelessness that Imentioned inGiacometti'swork is aquality of art that stands the test of time despite the distance there might be between the artist and us. There is something ‘immutable’, as Baudelaire would say, in Giacometti's work which stands the test of time. In 1935, Giacometti broke with the Surrealists (the movement he had joined in 1931) due to the need to use a model, to return to the figure, to the human head. This effort to reflect the real that I mentioned earlier isolated him in a certain way from the art world of his time, a time when abstract expressionismwas in full swing, and it inextricably linked him to the art of the past and, in a way, to the art yet to come. He was able to anticipate some of the trends that later focused on the human figure as their primary reference. Seen from a contemporary perspective, the Giacometti's art is undoubtedly current because of that ability to treat the subject in his work beyond the guidelines of his time. They say he was a very intense and introspective man, an artist. What was his greatest obsession? Where do you think he longed to get to? I do not know exactly if it was ‘intense’, I didn't have the pleasure of knowing him personally, surely it was. Introspective maybe. Every artist is to some extent, aren't they...? It should be remembered that he dedicated himself to portraiture during different stages throughout his life, and this dedication implies establishing a constant relationship with the outside world, with his models which —as we know— were often his own friends and family, but also dealers, critics or writers. It is also known that Giacometti sought constant contact with people inside and outside the space of his study. He was a regular at cafés, as well as well-known brothels such as Sphenix , where he found Caroline, one of his most beloved models. I would have loved to ask him about his greatest obsession, however, if we let ourselves be guided by his writings and, to a certain extent, his work, we might think about his search to represent reality (a fruitless task given reality itself), questioning the classical Western cannon, opening himself up to sources such as Cycladic, Egyptian, African or Byzantine art. He worked uninterruptedly in the search for an ideal. His way of working, his perseverance, his effort, was a project destined to failure. Does Giacometti represent a turning point in the art history? How would you sum up his great contribution, his legacy? Frankly, I would not say that Giacometti or his work is ‘a turning point’, on the contrary, I see it more as an axis of continuity. Giacometti's is a form of connection or bridge between different eras of art (and therefore its magnificent framing at the Prado has been made possible). Never an inflection or a break. I understand that his legacy could be precisely this: the realisation that art does not advance or recede, has the same problems as three centuries ago, which are not so different from those of today. It's the first time that the Prado has exhibited Giacometti's work and the exhibition includes pieces from the last twenty years. Does it represent a particular extract of his work, his particular vision, or is any particular piece missing? I thought of this as Giacometti’s posthumous walk through the Prado. His figures walk and stop, move between animation and stillness through the halls of the Museum. The walk begins in the emblematic XII room, popularly known as the Hall of Las Meninas, sancta sanctorum of the Prado, as my great friend Francisco Calvo Serraller liked to call it. Just outside room XII, entering the Prado's great gallery, we find the famous Chariot by Giacometti, sharing space with Titian’s Carlos V at the Battle of Muhlberg . On both sides, the busts of Lothar, which in addition to crossing this space, contrast with the Roman busts and also create encounters with El Greco, Tintoretto, Zurbarán, etc. In an exhibition as special as this, always there are always works missing, but this is part of the process of any project, and especially one with the scale involved in relating a modern artist whose painting we might say is 'classic' to such an imposing setting as the Prado and its very special ambience, which houses the best collection of paintings in the world. The artist confessed that his endless search was none other than the feeling he experienced during work, and that this was the reason why he always came out winning. What do you feel when you contemplate his work? I think it's quite the opposite. Giacometti always expressed his resounding failure and especially so in the face of achieving his goals. His work process reminds us in some way to the myth of Sisyphus in his constant search for a goal ever unattainable. There is a phrase of someone who was his friend, the Irish writer Samuel Beckett - who I think perfectly defines Giacometti's work process, and says thus: 'Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.' █ 1 Giacometti. A; «Vous me demandez quelles sont mes intentions artistiques» en Ecrits. París: Hermann, 2001, p. 84.