Exhibition at Pablo Picasso Graphics Museum Covers a Almost 70 Years of Artistic Creation

MUNSTER.- On its 10th anniversary the Pablo Picasso Graphics Museum, Münster, is focusing on the theme of the studio picture in the works of Picasso. “I don’t say everything, but I paint everything,” the artist is purported to have said once. The studio pictures are among the most intimate things the artist ever revealed about himself. It is a recurring theme in the work of the great Spaniard. The exhibition “Pablo Picasso – In the Artist’s Studio” covers a period of almost 70 years of artistic creation, beginning with two drawings from the early work of the artist and ending with the erotically charged works of the late 60s. Some 160 paintings, sculptures, drawings, graphics and photographs are exhibited in Münster.

The heirs of the artist are supporting the anniversary exhibition with generous loans. Well-known institutions and private collections in Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain and Switzerland, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, are among those lending works for the exhibition.

The scenes in the studio fluctuate between disclosure and concealment. Sometimes Picasso hides behind art historical quotations or traditions of representation, such as the monkey painters. Thus Picasso’s studio pictures sometimes deliver ironic commentary on his own art and that of his contemporaries.

Picasso attached special importance to the transformation of his pictorial ideas during the creative process. He did not set to work with a finished picture in mind, but concretized his idea in the course of the creative process. The exhibition follows this approach and presents rarely seen state and test prints that illustrate Picasso’s procedural visual thinking. In that way visitors are given intimate insights into his way of thinking and working. Photos by David Douglas Duncan, one of the few people who were allowed to photograph Picasso painting in the studio, round out the picture of an artist who apparently worked effortlessly with the motto in mind: “The journey is the destination.”

Time and again, Picasso’s studio pictures revolve around the central theme of “Artist and Model”. In the later work especially, the eroticisation of the subject is obvious. Here Picasso contrasts flawless youth in the shape of the models with the age and infirmity of the painter figures.

Post Picasso
The Picasso works are complemented by contemporary works related to the studio theme. A painting by the Italian Antonio Recalcati, for example, depicts the life-threatening affinity between an easel and a guillotine. “The Way Things Go”, a short film by the Swiss artist duo Fischli and Weiss, on the other hand, is the staging of a creative chain reaction. Works by Ben, Christo, and the Catalan Perejaume also provide very individual, sometimes provocative or unexpected contributions to the world of the artist.

10 years of Picasso in Münster
The Pablo Picasso Graphics Museum, Münster is home to some 800 lithographs, the world’s largest single collection of Picasso graphics. This year the museum is celebrating a milestone anniversary. With the anniversary exhibition “Pablo Picasso – In the Artist’s Studio” the only Picasso museum in Germany begins its birthday celebrations exactly 10 years after its opening.

Since its opening the museum has presented a total of 50 exhibitions dealing with all aspects of the great Spaniard and his artistic contemporaries. A comprehensive program of accompanying events in the fields of music, theatre and film will take place as part of the anniversary exhibition.

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