This autumn, two exhibitions, one in Marseille, one in London, invite audiences to rediscover Alberto Giacometti’s art through different lenses. At the Musée Cantini, Alberto Giacometti. Sculpting the Void traces the artist’s lifelong engagement with emptiness, perception, and existential space. At the Barbican, Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum reanimates his work through dialogue with one of today’s most uncompromising voices, the British-Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum. Seen together, the two shows reveal the uncanny persistence of Giacometti’s figures, and how their precarious presence still speaks to the turbulence of our current history.

From early Cubist-inspired works like Spoon Woman to Surrealist objects such as The Palace at 4 a.m., and finally his iconic post-war figures, thin, elongated silhouettes that both occupy and dissolve into space, the Marseille’s Musée Cantini, Alberto Giacometti. Sculpting the Void (until September 28, 2025) show traces Giacometti’s search for presence within.

Meanwhile, in London, the Barbican presents Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum (September 3, 2025 – January 11, 2026). Here, Giacometti’s fragile figures enter dialogue with Hatoum’s politically charged installations addressing exile, confinement, and displacement. Shared motifs, the cage, the body under pressure, the thresholds between inside and outside, create a conversation between post-war existentialism and contemporary geopolitics. This show follows the first ‘episode’ of this dialogue series with contemporary artist Huma Bhabha.

–