Fifty years without Picasso: Italy too celebrates the genius of Guernica

Fifty years without Picasso. The great artist died on April 8, 1973 at the age of 92 in Mougins, in the south of France, struck down by acute pulmonary edema after a long life in the middle of a short century, a volcanic, turbulent existence, between bohème, passions and artistic avant-gardes and policies. In Spain there are countless celebrations. The «Picasso Celebración 1973.2023» program will be developed between the cities of Malaga, Madrid, Barcelona, ​​La Coruña and Bilbao, which will include exhibitions focused on the various aspects of the Cubist Master’s research and on the influence he exerted on subsequent art. And even in Italy there is no shortage of opportunities. But Italy certainly does not forget it.

Celebrating his genius is the Peggy Guggenheim Collection which exhibits in the halls of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice all the works created by the Spanish artist, purchased by the American patron between the 1930s and 1950s. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Picasso and the French artist Georges Braque developed Cubism, a revolutionary approach to the representation of reality that changed the course of modern art. The six works by Picasso now in Peggy Guggenheim’s collection range from 1911, with the Cubist masterpiece “The Poet”, to 1939, with “Bust of a Man in a Striped Jersey”, and reflect the evolution of the artist’s visual language . Of these six works, five, with the exception of «Bust of a man in a striped shirt», were purchased by the Guggenheim before the collector exhibited her entire collection at the XXIV Venice Biennale in 1948, an event that became a real historical and cultural divide. Not only is the most contemporary art of the moment on display for the occasion, but it is precisely within this Biennale that Picasso inaugurates his first major retrospective in Italy.

An exhibition also in Sarzana

Even the Municipality of Sarzana (with the organization of Paloma, a Comediarting project, and in collaboration with the Museo Casa Natal Picasso de Málaga’), is dedicating an exhibition, with over 100 works, to one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century entitled “Pablo Picasso, the origins of the myth”.

The exhibition, which opens on April 8, fifty years after the Maestro’s death, joins the commemorations of the most important institutions and museums in Europe and the United States, and is one of the few cultural projects organized in Italy. «Picasso’s family was Ligurian and it is therefore an exhibition that also acquires an even deeper meaning for this reason, it is a return to the origins – explains the curator of the exhibition Lola Durán Úcar – If there is something that can explain Picasso’s complex personality is his passion, his curiosity, his immense desire to know and experiment. Picasso uses a marked and unmistakable pictorial language, full of genius, which revolutionized the twentieth century, and made it a myth».

The exhibition, at the Firmafede Fortress in Sarzana in Liguria from 8 April to 16 July 2023, is a complete account of Picasso’s artistic career. Over 100 works on display including 18 photographs, some taken by Juan Gyenes, from the Gyenes Archive and others by Robert Capa as well as lithographs, aquatints, etchings, drypoints, ceramics and the famous painting Tête de femme. The graphic work traces the entire artistic career of the master, from the first works, created in Paris, around the beginning of the twentieth century, when he was trying to make his way as an artist up to those created at the end of his life, when he retired to the villa in La Californie on the French Riviera and portrayed his young wife Jacqueline Roque and at the same time investigated the theme of earth and fire, creating some beautiful ceramic pieces, many of which are on display here.

The exhibition consists of a set of engravings belonging to the most important series, the Barcelona Suite and the Suite des Saltimbanques, the Tauromaquia or arte de torear and Dans l’Atelier, a selection of ceramics and a wonderful oil Tête de femme , the work inspired by one of his muse lovers, Dora Maar. The exhibition is enriched by some photographs by Robert Capa and others by Juan Gyenes, which tell the great master’s daily life.

At the Mann in Naples
At the MANN – National Archaeological Museum of Naples, on the other hand, BULLFIGHTING is staged, a performance presented by Körper – National Dance Production Center and created by Adriano and Andrea Bolognino, respectively choreographer, recently awarded as emerging Italian choreographer 2022 by the Danza&Danza magazine, and visual artist with already active important collaborations and solo and group exhibitions, including at the Capodimonte Museum and at the Morra Greco Foundation, as well as at the Rome Quadrennial.

The performance develops from the motif of the bull, a seismograph of Pablo Picasso’s work in continuous metamorphosis. «He is a figure of conflict, of struggle, of dance, whose symbolic duplicity is expressed by the artist in the archetype of the Minotaur», explain the organizers of the performance. The speech by Andrea and Adriano Bolognino will therefore focus on the motif of the bull as a point of connection between the poetics of Picasso and the MANN collection, which includes absolute masterpieces of classical art, such as the sculptural group of the Farnese Bull.