Download the press release as a pdf here
From 27 June 2026 to 10 January 2027, Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague will be presenting Rui Chafes X Alberto Giacometti: Gris, Vide, Cris III. This international exhibition brings together the work of the Portuguese artist Rui Chafes with that of the Swiss modernist Alberto Giacometti. With his impressive installations, Chafes offers a new, tranquil and sensory experience of Giacometti's world-famous sculptures. Gris, Vide, Cris III, the third exhibition in an international series, is being staged by Museum Beelden aan Zee in collaboration with the Fondation Giacometti in Paris and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. www.beeldenaanzee.nl.
Curators: Helena de Freitas and Brigitte Bloksma
The Portuguese contemporary artist Rui Chafes (Lisbon, 1966) was born in the same year in which the Swiss modernist Alberto Giacometti (Borgonovo, 1901 – Chur, 1966) died. Although both artists are separated by time, place, and form language, they share an artistic pursuit: transcendence and making the invisible visible. In their own way the two artists explore how sculpture bears witness to both presence as well as absence, a tension between body, space, and mind. While Giacometti achieves this through a process of reduction, Chafes explores the boundaries of iron.
The Rui Chafes X Alberto Giacometti: Gris, Vide, Cris III exhibition, organised in cooperation with the Fondation Giacometti and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, will show the sculptures by both artists for the first time together in the Netherlands. “After the successful Ryan Gander X Edgar Degas exhibition, museum Beelden aan Zee once again has the opportunity to bring two grandmasters together in a unique meeting,” says Brigitte Bloksma, director and co-curator of the exhibition. “The architecture of our museum with the natural play of light forms the ideal space for this encounter. It's an exhibition that not only needs to be seen but also experienced."