The creative process of “Yo Picasso.Self-portraits”

We started this exhibition project more than three years ago, the only way in which an exhibition of such a size could have been developed.  We presented the project to the Museu Picasso at the beginning of 2010 and it was accepted straight away, so it was necessary to get working quickly. The first question we asked ourselves was, obviously, if it had been done before. There existed some precedents but limited to a part of the exhibition, and not to its totality (specifically, the extraordinary “Picasso and Portraiture”, shown at the MoMA in 1996, the curator of which was William Rubin and with a text about self-portraits by Kirk Varnedoe). All in all, as of today no monographic exhibition has been carried out about the self-portrait in Picasso. From the exhibition point of view, it would seem that Picasso is an overexplored artist, and the inexistence of precedents signified quite a challenge.

Self-Portrait. Pablo Picasso. 1907. Oil on canvas. 56×46cm. Národní galerie v Praze

Read more »