The voice of the Catalan Picasso

Barcelona is a Pi­casso city and Barcelona has to breathe Pi­casso through­out 2023”, stated Em­manuel Guigon, the di­rec­tor of the only Pi­casso Mu­seum in the world that the artist him­self cre­ated “as an­other work of his own”. It is the Barcelona mu­seum that this year cel­e­brates two im­por­tant an­niver­saries. The 50th an­niver­sary of Pi­casso’s death, with an of­fi­cial pro­gramme or­gan­ised by the Span­ish and French gov­ern­ments, and the 60th since the home of his legacy was in­au­gu­rated in three his­toric Gothic build­ings on Car­rer Mont­cada.

In this of­fi­cial pro­gramme for the fifti­eth an­niver­sary of the cre­ator’s demise on 8 April 1973, the Barcelona mu­seum is hold­ing two highly am­bi­tious ex­hi­bi­tions. The first, now open, is a mag­nif­i­cent pre­sen­ta­tion of the col­lec­tion owned by art dealer Daniel-Henry Kah­n­weiler, to whom Pi­casso and the other gi­ants of Cu­bism owe al­most every­thing. Right now, it is the best ex­hi­bi­tion in Barcelona.

A year that has started so well will not end badly, ei­ther. From 19 Oc­to­ber to 25 Feb­ru­ary 2024, a si­mul­ta­ne­ous dou­ble ex­hi­bi­tion will ex­plore the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Pi­casso and Miró (here we can add one more an­niver­sary: the 40th since the death of the lat­ter artist) in their re­spec­tive mu­se­ums. Much is being said about this pro­ject, but lit­tle about its de­tails and the works that will be ex­hib­ited. Its pro­mot­ers ask for a lit­tle more pa­tience. At an event for the press, Guigon yes­ter­day promised that the loan list will be “im­pres­sive.”

One of the ini­tia­tives that will emerge from the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 60th an­niver­sary of the mu­seum’s in­au­gu­ra­tion, which will be cel­e­brated on March 9, is a book fol­low­ing the steps taken by the artist since he ar­rived in Barcelona with his fam­ily in 1895, at the age of thir­teen. Pi­casso Barcelona. A car­tog­ra­phy, by Claus­tre Ra­fart, is an in­vi­ta­tion to wan­der through the places of the city that marked Pi­casso’s life. Lit­er­ally, be­cause the City Coun­cil will in­stall plaques along the route.

For­mer cu­ra­tor of the Pi­casso Mu­seum Claus­tre Ra­fart will take part in a line of pro­jects, pro­moted by var­i­ous agents, that are equally nec­es­sary in get­ting to know more about the Cata­lan Pi­casso. It is the Pi­casso that crossed Barcelona’s bor­ders and rev­o­lu­tionised art dur­ing his stays in Horta de Sant Joan, Gósol and Cadaqués. The pho­tog­ra­pher Bernard Plossu, win­ner of the state pho­tog­ra­phy award in France, has put to­gether a re­port on these Cata­lan land­scapes that he toured, and this will take the form of a pub­li­ca­tion.

Aside from the mu­seum, nu­mer­ous in­sti­tu­tions have sched­uled ac­tiv­i­ties in this Year of Pi­casso: the De­sign Mu­seum will ded­i­cate an ex­hi­bi­tion to the ce­ram­ics that in­spired the artist; the Fil­moteca has digi­tised five films that deal with the artist’s work; and the Col­lege of Ar­chi­tects will ex­hibit the five mu­rals that Pi­casso con­ceived for the newly build­ing that houses it in Plaça Nova.