31st January 2012

Farewell to Pepe Serra: assessment of a phase

When our director Pepe Serra said goodbye to the team at the Museu Picasso he told us: ‘We have done ten years’ work in five years.’ What follows is a brief summary of some of the projects carried out during his time as director.

· Research and development of exhibitions that contribute knowledge and added value.

“Feasting on Paris. Picasso 1900-1907” (2011). Self-Portrait with Palette, Picasso, Paris, 1906 |  “Picasso Looks at Degas” (2010). Read more »

19th January 2012

The Pieces of a Jigsaw

I’ve always liked books with pictures. When I was little I spent a lot of afternoons on the sofa leafing through one of the few books with photographs that we had at home. Years later I worked as editor on a collection of history books, which were also illustrated, and I remember my boss at the time saying that the combinations of images should speak for themselves.

Provisional and final versions of a page of the second number of the Focus collection”Picasso 1936. Traces of an exhibition” Read more »

30th December 2011

The Museu Picasso’s 2011 in images

The task of choosing the most representative images of this year that is coming to an end was far from easy. Between us, we have worked on a lot of projects! Exhibitions, activities, research and restoration, education, registrar, library, publications, communications, administration, visitor services… it’s a long list. Here, then, is just a taste of what the museum has done in 2011.

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24th March 2011

Museums and Wikipedia: towards a necessary cooperation

“It is not logical for the museums and Wikipedia to look at each other with mistrust as if they were enemies, because in reality they do a very similar job and are aimed at the same people, it’s just that they work in different ways.  The best thing for both communities is to work together so as to construct a proactive relationship that generates mutual benefits without detracting from their principles”. These words of Liam Wyatt reflect very well the spirit of the first meeting between the Catalan museums and Wikipedia representatives. The overall balance of the day was very positive: more than 100 professionals from museums and documentation centres from all over Catalonia actively participated in the different talks and discussions that were held throughout the day.  There was a feeling of great interest to know how this popular digital encyclopedia works and to explore ways that could help to spread the task being carried out by museums and cultural institutions.

The conference hall of the Picasso Museum full to the brim with professionals of museums from all over Catalonia

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31st January 2011

The catalogue of the Museu Picasso library is now online!

This announcement of the launch of the online Museum library catalogue will probably come as a surprise to many of you, and some of you may even have the feeling that you have already consulted it. The fact is that our regular users have previously had access to the physical catalogue in situ, in the Museum’s public consultation space, but what we are presenting here is the online catalogue, available on the Internet.

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19th November 2010

Abstract: A new collection

When I started working at the Museu Picasso, six years ago, I was thrilled with the idea of being involved in producing the catalogues that accompany the temporary exhibitions. But I also had a very particular aspiration, the origin of which goes back to 1984.

Cover of the petit journal for the Kandinsky’s exhibition in 1984. Read more »

19th October 2009

The Digital Image in the Museu Picasso: a Project in Collaboration with the University

On the 7th and 8th of October I attended as a representative of the Museu Picasso at the two lectures by Carles Mitjà, a professor at the UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), spoke at the Working Sessions on the control of image quality at the Sonimag photo & multimedia fair. I am still asking myself how I, with my very limited knowledge of the digital image, came to be taking part in a speech full of algorithms on digital image quality… This is, then, a story of collaboration and mutual enrichment.

When I joined at the Museu Picasso just over a year ago the Director expressed his very real concern about the issue of ‘photography’ in the Museum. Despite my background of 14 years working in the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona, I remember insisting that I could introduce some degree of order and establish organizational and conceptual criteria, but that what was needed in the twenty-first century was digital images, about which I knew very little. I realized that the Director and I saw eye to eye on this, both of us aware of the importance of the issue for the proper functioning of the Museum, but we were also aware of the magnitude of the tragedy. So with this in mind I set to work.

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