Abstract

The purpose in this study is to reconsider the relationship between Alberto Giacometti and Georges Bataille. This relationship was first noticed by Rosalind Krauss. In her study, she claimed that Giacometti's work has horizontality, and this responds to Bataille's " Bas Matérialisme" which is an idea established in Documents. However, I think her argument is not complete because she undervalued another important character of Giacometti's work. That is violence, which means exactly death. Violence is also an important moment for "Bas Matérialisme" which is intended to collapse the philosophical hierarchy. According Bataille's later works, this violence is banned in our daily life, but since we are attracted by it, it must be transgressed. Bataille claims the importance of death by showing "sacrifice" in which executor kills living thing or destroys non-living thing. In Giacommeti's surrealist work, we can find some motives of murder or destruction. Those works represent the moment before the execution of murder or destruction. This Giacometti's work's special structure causes an impulse to destroy. In other words, it demands that the spectator should play the role of executor of "sacrifice". For example, in Fleur an danger, the spectator may want to cut the string which is pulling the wood bar, and that will cause the white thing to be destructed. The work provokes the spectator to confront the idea of death, both killing and being killed. Viewing Giacometti's work as "sacrifice" can be a false-experience of death