Alberto Giacometti's iconic sculptures are currently featured in two distinct exhibitions that pair his work with major Arab world artists, creating a transcontinental dialogue on human fragility and political consciousness. In London, the Barbican Art Gallery presents 'Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum,' while Paris hosts 'Giacometti-Marwan: Obsessions' at the Fondation Giacometti. Both shows, running through January 2026, recontextualize the Swiss master's existential forms within contemporary conversations about exile, violence, and resilience. Rather than positioning Giacometti as a patriarchal figure, these exhibitions establish him as a contemporary companion to artists whose formal concerns are inseparable from historical and political realities. The dual presentations span different generations and media but share a fertile confrontation around the body and its vulnerabilities.

The London exhibition showcases Mona Hatoum's installations alongside Giacometti's slender sculptures, revealing unexpected harmonies between their artistic languages. Hatoum, a Palestinian artist born in Lebanon, transforms everyday objects into potent symbols of displacement and confinement, as seen in her work 'Remains of the Day' (2016-2018), which depicts a domestic interior reduced to ruins. Her piece 'Incommunicado' (1993) transforms a child's crib into a lethal instrument, echoing the violence latent in Giacometti's 'Femme égorgée' (1932). The curators, Shanay Jhaveri of the Barbican and Émilie Bouvard of the Fondation Giacometti, have orchestrated these encounters with remarkable subtlety, avoiding forced comparisons while highlighting genuine affinities. Hatoum's 'Roadworks' (1985) performance video, showing her dragging boots through city streets, resonates with Giacometti's walking figures that seem to move yet remain static.

In Paris, the Fondation Giacometti presents Syrian painter Marwan Kassab-Bachi's portrait works in conversation with the sculptor's heads and busts. Marwan, who lived in Berlin from 1957 until his death, painted faces that occupy entire canvases, sometimes cropped as if spilling beyond frames, creating visage-landscapes that pursue the viewer with their gaze. His thickly layered yet not heavy paint application shares Giacometti's obsessive reworking of surfaces, where fingers and knives carve into plaster like earth. The exhibition, curated by Françoise Cohen and Racha Salti in collaboration with the artist's widow, reveals how both artists chose figuration during periods dominated by abstraction to express their deepest concerns. Marwan's engagement with the Baath Party in his youth and subsequent disillusionment informed his depictions of anti-heroes and fragile, androgynous figures.

Despite their different approaches—Hatoum's abstract installations versus Giacometti's figurative sculptures, Marwan's painted faces versus Giacometti's molded heads—the artists share profound thematic concerns. Both witness human vulnerability and resilience while acknowledging the madness of contemporary existence. Hatoum never employs figuration, while it remained Giacometti's ultimate obsession, yet both extract monumental significance from minimal means. Their works serve as timeless emblems of humanity buffeted by the insanity of war and political oppression. The exhibitions demonstrate how formal choices become political acts when shaped by experiences of exile and historical trauma.

The political dimensions of these pairings emerge through the artists' biographies and contemporary resonances. Hatoum's Palestinian heritage infuses works like 'Interior Landscape' (2008), featuring a bed with barbed wire springs and a pillow embroidered with historic Palestine in human hair, with urgent relevance as images from Gaza continue to circulate. Marwan's journal excerpts from October 2000 express raw anger at the Palestinian uprising and what he termed the 'savage murder' by Zionism, revealing how political violence shaped his artistic vision. Giacometti's post-war sculptures, created in the shadow of the Holocaust, similarly channeled historical trauma into universal statements on human suffering. The curators have included lighter moments too, such as Giacometti's elongated 'Cat' (1954) alongside Hatoum's 'Terracotta Tile' with a dog's paw print, acknowledging the macabre humor that redeems their dark visions.

Both exhibitions run through January 2026, offering extended opportunities for audiences to experience these cross-cultural dialogues. The London show continues at the Barbican Center's Level 2 Gallery, while the Paris presentation remains at the Fondation Giacometti's Art Nouveau and Art Deco townhouse. These pairings demonstrate how modernist masters like Giacometti can remain vital partners in contemporary conversations about identity, displacement, and the human condition. By presenting these encounters, the institutions challenge conventional art historical narratives and affirm that formal innovation is inseparable from social and political consciousness. The success of these exhibitions lies in their refusal to treat Giacometti as a static historical figure, instead positioning him as a living interlocutor for artists addressing today's most pressing concerns.