18th May 2012

Approximations to the Laboratory Exchanges – III

During the month of March we held the third Laboratory Exchanges. The contents developed during these sessions, as well as the previous ones, will be included in the speech of the project “FX Archive: from Economy zero”, within the framework of which we will also present the exhibition “Economy: Picasso” this May.

As follows we will give you a summary of the most relevant contents of the third sessions of these laboratories: Read more »

3rd April 2012

Approaches to the Interchanges Laboratory – II

Back in February we started the Interchanges Laboratory, which has continued this month with a block of sessions on 6, 7 and 8 March, and a third and final block on 20, 21 and 22 March.

Below is a summary of the second sessions, highlighting the most relevant inputs from these debates, talks and performative acts that offer a variety of views and interpretations of the relations between art, work, object and economy, which will be incorporated into the discourse of the project FX File: On Economy Zero, in the context of which we will also be presenting the exhibition “Economy: Picasso”.

Richard Hamilton – Just what it that made yesterday’s homes so different, so appealing? – 1992 – 26 x 25,1 cm – Metropolitan Museum, New York – © Richard Hamilton, VEGAP, Barcelona 2011

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15th March 2012

Approaches to the Interchanges Laboratory

On 21, 22 and 23 February we held the first sessions of the Interchanges Laboratory, part of Pedro G. Romero’s project Archivo F.X. : On Economy Zero, of which the upcoming exhibition “Economy: Picasso” will also form part.

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1st March 2012

Picasso at the Tate

On 15 February, the monumental exhibition “Picasso & Modern British Art” opened to the public at Tate Britain in London. The show traces all of the significant points of connection between Pablo Picasso and the British art scene, from his influence on artists such as Duncan Grant and Wyndham Lewis in the early years of the twentieth century, through the admiration he inspired in such seminal figures as Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon, especially between the wars, to the second half of the century, when he was a source for inspiration to Graham Sutherland and David Hockney, among others.

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26th January 2012

The Making of “Picasso 1936. Traces of an Exhibition”

The putting together of “Picasso 1936. Traces of an Exhibition” was a very special challenge. There we were, an art museum, proposing a show containing no original work of any kind: in the words of the curator of this radical venture, Sílvia Domènech, it was a question of creating an exhibition of documents rather than with documents, in order to conceptualize the significance of the Picasso Exhibition held in Barcelona, ​​Madrid and Bilbao in 1936 through analysis of the archives.

Interview with Silvia Domenech, curator of the exhibition Read more »

30th September 2011

On Iberian Heads and Self-portraits

As “Feasting on Paris. Picasso 1900-1907” comes to its last weeks, we have asked its curator, Marilyn McCully, to give us an insider’s view of a particularly significant artwork in the exhibition. If you woud like to know more about Ms. McCully’s thesis and the exhibition, take a look at the short interview with her in our Summer Capsules as well as the specific web site. And if you haven’t yet got round to visiting the exhibition, don’t miss this last opportunity to do so.

Self-Portrait with a Palette. Picasso.(Paris, 1906 Read more »

14th September 2011

Circus Figures Wreathed in Mystery

In the context of the exhibition Devouring Paris. Picasso 1900-1907, co-produced with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, we invited Edwin Becker, Head of Exhibitions at the Van Gogh, to tell us about his favourite work in the show and why he likes it. Becker also offered us his vision of the Paris that Picasso would have found at the beginning of the twentieth century, in a brief interview in our Summer Capsules.

“In an exhibition, I always try to show the importance of the present and establish relationships with it. Of course it is wonderful to admire the art treasures of the past, the features of a movement or images of an era, but it is much more interesting to relate artworks to present-day events, trends and themes, or even to other works of different periods or in other media. Read more »

18th May 2011

From Picasso’s caricature Dream and Lie of Franco to Toño Salazar’s Coplas

The backbone of our exhibition “Cartoons on the Front Line” is the pair of sugar-lift aquatints with scraper that make up Dream and Lie of Franco. Picasso made these etchings in Paris, in June 1937, almost a year into the Spanish Civil War, in order to raise money for the Republican cause.

The context of the exhibition as a whole brings out the true value of the etchings, which can be seen here in all their essence and at the same time socialized, interacting as they do with a multidisciplinary group of works — around one hundred and twenty! — by different artists: paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, illustrated books, documentary films, magazines and posters of authors artists from Goya to Picasso himself by way of Grosz, Heartfield, Helios Gómez, Luis Seoane, Brangulí, Josep Maria Sagarra, Centelles, Pérez de Rozas, Josep Renau, Mauricio Amster, Mariano Rawicz and others. Read more »

13th May 2011

“Devouring Paris”, between Amsterdam and Barcelona

On 29 May exhibition “Devouring Paris. Picasso 1900-1907” at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam will close its doors and get ready to come to Barcelona, ​​where it will open next June 30.

Catalog cover

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9th May 2011

Dream and Lie of Franco: beyond Picasso

Removing a work of art from the context in which it is normally found can have surprising consequences, and the exhibition “Cartoons on the Front Line” at the Museu Picasso is a clear illustration of this.

The central core of the exhibition is the series of etchings and sugar-lift aquatint with scraper Dream and Lie of Franco, prints by Picasso from the museum’s collection.

Dream and Lie of Franco [plate 1, state II]. Paris, 8 January 1937. Etching and sugar aquatint on copper plate, printed on Montval laid paper

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