![L: Alberto Giacometti, Femme debout [Standing Woman], 1957, Fondation Giacometti © Succession Alberto Giacometti / Adagp, Paris 2025
R: Huma Bhabha, Mask of Dimitrios, 2019. Image credit: Daniel Perez. Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner Gall](https://www.culturecalling.com/images/uploads/header_images/79ba4696-2da2-c631-dbc9-35c93a394225_%282%29742.png)
A major new exhibition by artist Huma Bhabha, the first in a series of three exhibitions in collaboration with Fondation Giacometti.
The Barbican presents a major new exhibition by artist Huma Bhabha, the first in a series of three groundbreaking exhibitions in partnership with Fondation Giacometti. Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha is the first time Huma Bhabha and Alberto Giacometti’s works will be seen together. Subtitled Nothing is Behind Us, the exhibition is Bhabha’s first at a public institution in London.
Inaugurating a new, intimate space within the Barbican, the sculptures in this show, drawing from Bhabha and Giacometti’s oeuvres, will span nearly a century of artmaking, encompassing a range of media – plaster, bronze, terracotta – along with assemblage and found objects .Amongst the works on display are iconic pieces by Giacometti such as Walking Woman I (1932) and Walking Man I (1960), as well as the tabletop sculpture The Glade (Composition with nine figures) (1950).
Taking a prompt from Giacometti, Bhabha approaches the gallery space as if it were a street: sculptures are grouped to engender the feeling of a gathering, in which individuals potentially cross paths with one another. As visitors move through this convening, the ancient, modern and contemporary intersect, with both artists sharing a deep and enduring interest in the body as an embodiment of the traumas of our times.
Bhabha presents existing works drawn from across her career, along with a new commission in iron, created especially for this exhibition. The public foyer outside the gallery also hosts four monumental painted and patinated bronze sculptures, recalling pre-modern effigies which Bhabha debuted at Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City in 2024, which are being shown in Europe for the first time.
Bhabha’s exhibition is followed by Mona Hatoum on 3 September 2025 and Lynda Benglis on 5 February 2026. The exhibitions bring together the practices of three contemporary artists known for their originality and ingenuity, alongside historic works by Alberto Giacometti.
Listings
8 May to 10 August 2025: Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha
3 September 2025 to 11 January 2026: Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum
5 February to 24 May 2026: Encounters: Giacometti x Lynda Benglis
Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS
Standard admission for each exhibition will be £8
Further Information: www.barbican.org.uk