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 »

14th May 2012

Talking about Picasso’s Guernica at Montjuïc

The Generalitat de Catalunya’s Memorial Democràtic initiative has organized a series of activities, exhibitions and talks to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Civil War bombing of the civilian population.

Guernica. Pablo Picasso, 1937. Oil on canvas

Although aerial bombardment had been used in previous wars, the Spanish Civil War was the first in which the civilian population was subjected to intensive and continuous attack from the air. First in Euskadi — the Basque Country — and then all over the country, the rebel General Franco’s army and its Italian and German allies systematically bombed defenceless towns and cities behind the lines. This aberrant tactic continued during World War II and culminated in the dropping of the atomic bomb, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then the bombing of the civilian population has been a common practice in almost all wars. Read more »

23rd April 2012

Picasso, between words and Pictures

We are currently getting ready to stage the latest “Picasso in Words” micro-story writing competition!, which is now in its third year! The event was launched in 2010 as a joint venture between the Museu Picasso and the LletrA project at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), and each year and we are happier with the level of participation and the results.

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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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22nd March 2012

A Collage before Collage

I first took a proper look at the Picasso drawing Man Leaning against a Wall, the starting point of the exhibition A “Collage before Collage”, when I was preparing my essay on Miró and collage. In this early work the lines drawn by the artist’s hand are complemented by a mechanical reproduction of a photographic image, which set me to thinking that it could be seen as a forerunner of the subject was dealing with in the book. However, the date of the drawing — March 1899 —was so far in advance of the discovery of collage in the spring of 1912 that I decided to put off studying it until I had finished my work on Miró and had the time to tackle it properly.

Man Leaning against a Wall

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20th March 2012

The Mystery of the Tilted Picture

If you have visited the collection of the Museu Picasso in recent years and have a sharp eye you will probably have noticed that one of the artworks slants away from the wall at an angle. Do you know which picture we’re talking about? In fact, this is one of the highlights of the collection: Motherhood, a pastel from 1903.

Motherhood. Pablo Picasso, 1903

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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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5th March 2012

On the Market, the Economy and Art at the Reading Club

The conversation with the critic and curator Valentín Roma, author of Rostros (Periférica, 2012), about Serge Guilbaut’s book How New York Stole the Idea of ​​Modern Art took us on a journey through a series of historical events and ideas fundamental to understanding the visual arts of the twentieth century.

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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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16th February 2012

Two Old Friends Meet again in Space, Time and Art

After spending two years apart in different rooms of the Museu Picasso, now, as a result of a redistribution of the collection towards the end of 2011, two highlights of our collection —Woman’s Head (Fernande), from 1905, and Portrait of Madame Canals (1906), now known as Portrait of Benedetta Bianco — are on show in the same space once again, directly facing one another.

This new placing of the two works, the first a sculpture and the other a painting, reflects a desire to explain the influence of their respective models on the personal and artistic world of Picasso in Paris in the early years of the twentieth century.

Portrait of Benedetta Bianco | Woman’s Head (Fernande)

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