This part of The Barbican has been repurposed into an intimate gallery space where the works of contemporary artists are being shown with Giacometti’s sculptures throughout this year.
Giacometti’s figures come from the desolation of World War 2.
The first artist in this series is Huma Bhabha whose sculpture also deals with violence and ruination.
Bhabha’s unnerving figures inhabit the foyer.
Associations and resonances assault me as I look at her work; these clay feet below could be from Pompeii or, more grotesquely, from the Belgian Congo where Alice Seeley’s photographs revealed the colonial barbarism taking place.
This figure’s head can be interpreted in different ways depending on the angle of vision: staring ahead
or screaming, that eye looking more like a mouth here.
Note the direct stylistic connection between it and the Giacometti woman in the background.