Giacometti Sculptures to Confront Ancient Egyptian Temple at The Met This Summer

Seventeen sculptures by Alberto Giacometti will be installed within and around the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dendur from June 12 through September 8. The exhibition, titled 'Giacometti in the Temple of Dendur,' is a collaboration between The Met and the Paris-based Fondation Giacometti, which is lending 14 works; the museum contributes three from its own holdings. The selection prominently features feminine figures, including the 1932 bronze 'Femme qui marche I' and the 1956 'Femme de Venise I,' ranging in height from 11 inches to over 8 feet. Curators note Giacometti's lifelong fascination with Ancient Egyptian art, which he studied during visits to the Louvre after moving to Paris in 1922 and through books he collected. The installation aims to reactivate the first-century BCE temple, originally dedicated to the goddess Isis, as a sacred environment and create a dialogue about sculpture's role in mediating presence and belief across millennia. The temple itself was gifted to the United States by Egypt in 1965 in recognition of U.S. preservation efforts, officially acquired by The Met in 1967, and reconstructed in what was once called the Sackler Wing. The museum later removed the Sackler name from the space following controversies related to the opioid epidemic. Giacometti, born in Switzerland in 1901 to Impressionist painter Giovanni Giacometti, briefly aligned with Surrealism before developing his signature elongated figurative style in the post-war period.