The Metropolitan Museum of Art has unveiled a new installation featuring the sculptures of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, displayed within the museum’s Temple of Dendur, an ancient Egyptian monument gifted to the United States in 1965. The exhibition, open through September 8, brings together three pieces from the Met’s collection alongside 14 additional plaster and bronze figures on loan from the Giacometti Foundation. Most of these works are from the “Women of Venice” series, originally created for the French pavilion at the 1956 Venice Biennale.

Giacometti’s slender, elongated figures are positioned amid the massive stone temple and its reflecting pool, drawing on the setting’s historical resonance where worshippers once mingled with deities. The artist, who regularly visited the ancient Egyptian galleries of the Louvre, sought inspiration from the hieratic stillness and monumental qualities of that art. His sculptures’ textured surfaces, resembling weathered clay, evoke a sense of emergence from primordial matter, further enhancing their archaic presence in the modern museum space.

While promotional images of the installation often isolate Giacometti’s bronzes against the temple’s backdrop, the reality of the exhibition is marked by the presence of a bustling crowd. Visitors in casual attire move through the glass-enclosed court, sometimes using the sculptures as backdrops for photographs. Despite this vibrant atmosphere, the artworks maintain their imposing and contemplative character, engaging in an unspoken dialogue with both the architectural setting and the living observers around them. This dynamic interplay reflects the artist’s lifelong exploration of human connection and the fragility of interpersonal relationships.

Born in 1901, Giacometti settled in Paris in the 1920s and briefly joined the Surrealist movement. His early work oscillated between primitive symbolism and classical formality before evolving into a distinctive style marked by attenuated human figures. The exhibition features “Femme qui marche (I)” (1932), regarded as one of his finest pieces, notable for its streamlined form and stylized stride reminiscent of ancient Egyptian queens, yet free from any specific cultural identity. The curators have chosen to exclude several of Giacometti’s more violent and unsettling Surrealist works, such as “Woman with Her Throat Cut” (1932), on account of their graphic and disturbing nature, which would contrast sharply with the serene surroundings.

World War II had a significant impact on Giacometti’s artistic direction. After a period of refuge in Geneva, he returned to Paris with renewed focus on the human figure, his sculptures becoming thinner, lonelier, and more persistent. His later works, reflective of the Cold War era’s existential anxieties, emphasized themes of endurance and human dignity amid widespread suffering. The “Women of Venice” series is emblematic of this shift, featuring rigid, upright forms that symbolize survival and persistence.

In the final two decades of his life, Giacometti repeatedly revisited a limited repertoire of figures and portraits, exploring them with a persistence that bordered on obsession. In the context of the Temple of Dendur, this repetition takes on a quality of stoicism, as the sculptures remain steadfast amidst the ebb and flow of museum visitors, embodying a timeless patience that transcends artistic trends and generations.