2nd of October 2009

What will be doing at the Museu Picasso for the 2009-2010 season

Last Monday the Museum presented its new programme for the 2009/2010 season in an incomparable location - the renovated Las Meninas Room.

Before presenting the program and the exhibitions calendar, the Director, Pepe Serra, stressed two basic ideas that underpin the Museum’s lines of actuation. Firstly, the idea of complexity and heterogeneity: ‘We must bear in mind that audiences have changed and diversified a great deal while museums have remained very static,‘ Pepe Serra said at the press conference. Society has changed and museums need to evolve accordingly. Hence the need for critical reflection in order to make the Museum’s programmes more complex and more heterogeneous, offering different things, but always on the basis of a project, with each one contributing value.

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15th of July 2009

‘Wild’ (fauve) is probably the word that best defines the picture the Museum is currently using to publicize its Kees Van Dongen exhibition, but how was the image that is the leitmotif of the campaign chosen?

The choice of image for a communication campaign is a process based on a relationship of complicity involving the Museum’s Director, the Exhibitions Department, the curators, the Publications Department and the Photography Archive, all of whom take part in a process that begins at the moment that the decision is made to put on the show.

The communication campaigns of the Museu Picasso de Barcelona are not off-the-peg but tailor-made haute couture. In saying this I am not being elitist but simply descriptive, because there are a great many factors to be fine-tuned and the best options must be chosen in each case. Communicating exactly the right message is not easy, and the responsibility to show to its best advantage what others have created is the main priority: we are the medium, and we have to bring out the most interesting aspects of each project.

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29th of June 2009

We’ve got something special to celebrate: a brand new addition to the Museu Picasso!

Since last May 26, the Museu Picasso has the only known preparatory sketch for the  Las Meninas series, which reveals how Pablo Picasso conceived and addressed that great work. He made sketch the very day before painting the first canvas in the series.

Thanks to the generosity of Catherine Hutin, the daughter of Jacqueline Picasso, the museum now has the only known sketch of Las Meninas. Catherine is following in her mother’s footsteps in maintaining Pablo Picasso’s close ties with the city of Barcelona.

We know that Picasso shut himself in the studio at La Californie, his villa near Cannes, from 16 August to 30 December 1957 to work on the series Las Meninas, one of the most in-depth analyses ever made of the great painting by Velázquez. We shall very soon be privileged to contemplate the Picasso canvas (been on temporary loan to the National Gallery for the exhibition Picasso.Challenging the Past), dated August 17, 1957, together with the sketch, and delight once more in the artist’s greatness.

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27th of May 2009

Museu Picasso 2.0: A space for conversation

Welcome to the Museu Picasso de Barcelona, and welcome to the blog!

Our and your museum is the result of Picasso’s desire to leave something of himself to the city of Barcelona, where he served his apprenticeship and spent several extended stays. We are proud to say that the people of Barcelona have a truly exceptional museum, created by the artist’s express wish. The Museu Picasso in Barcelona is undoubtedly the centre of reference for understanding Pablo Picasso’s formative years up to his Blue Period. The collection then makes a chronological leap forward to 1917, when the artist returned to the city, and then again to 1957, with the complete series of Las Meninas.

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27th of May 2009

The Night of the Picasso

Saturday, 16 May saw the latest Night of Museums, an initiative promoted by the Council of Europe, which for the last five years has provided us with the exceptional opportunity to discover and visit more than 2,000 museums all over Europe between 7.00 p.m. and 1 a.m.

In Barcelona 27 different museums took part, with audio-visuals, cinema, concerts, perfomance art, guided visits, readings… on a Saturday night… and for free!

Who goes to a museum at night? Who caught that cultural Saturday Night Fever? Here is our report on The Night of the Picasso.

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