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Collections

Alberto Giacometti
The Cage (first version)1950

On view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3
Bronze sculpture of an open cage-like rectangular frame enclosing a rough elevated platform with two extremely elongated, attenuated human figures
Artist or Maker
Alberto Giacometti
Title
The Cage (first version)
Place Made
Switzerland
Date Made
1950
Medium
Bronze, cast number 8/8
Dimensions
35 7/8 × 14 3/8 × 13 3/8 in. (91.12 × 36.51 × 33.97 cm)
Credit Line
Partial, fractional and promised gift of Janice and Henri Lazarof
Accession Number
M.2005.70.28
Classification
Sculpture
Collecting Area
Modern Art
Curatorial Notes

Much of Giacometti’s postwar work was seen as a fitting response to the horrors of World War II. Here a hollowed-out space contains two figures positioned at a distance from each other—they are together, yet alienated in the enclosure that surrounds them.


Wall label, 2021.

Selected Bibliography
  • Barron, Stephanie. Envisioning Modernism: The Janice and Henri Lazarof Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2012.
  • Barron, Stephanie. Acknowledgments, or Every Label Tells a Story. Los Angeles: Art Catalogues: LACMA, 2017.
Copyright
© Alberto Giacometti Estate/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY/ADAGP, Paris