Art Of The Day Weekly
#361 - from 23 October 2014 to 29 October 2014
IN THE AIR
Picasso comes back to Paris
Following five years of works and a last straight line to meet the deadline, including a much commented change of president when Anne Baldassari was fired and replaced by Laurent Le Bon, the musée Picasso will finally reopen on 25 October. It was postponed various times, but the date was too precious to be missed: indeed it is the anniversary of the birth in Malaga, in 1881, of a giant of 20th century art. The exhibit space has been tripled and enriched with an auditorium. But the itinerary is somewhat puzzling. There are very few indications and a choice to combine a chronological and themed approach. The first room is the perfect example, with works from the artist’s youth next to the Jeune Peintre, Picasso’s last work, painted in the spring of 1972. The works are hung according to the emotion and the “pure” aesthetic shock they give, something like what the museum of quai Branly did. But this is at the cost of any pedagogical approach, considered a bit old fashioned? The sheer number of works, a result of the colossal donation in 1979, allows the visitor to follow all the artist’s itinerary, scattering icons throughout the rooms – the Flûte de Pan, the portraits of Olga and Dora Maar, the Acrobate, the Chèvre, the Massacre en Corée or the Tête de taureau (the famous combination of a bicycle seat and handle bar, which one can easily miss since it hangs high on the wall). Not to mention Picasso’s personal collection: his Cézannes, Renoirs, Matisses and Derains, his African and Oceanian masks, which all enjoy a beautiful display on the last floor.
• Le Musée national Picasso (5, rue de Thorigny, 75003 Paris) will reopen to the public on 25 October 2014. Catalogue Flammarion.
EXHIBITIONS
Carles Casagemas, Casa de citas, MNAC Barcelona.
In memory of Casagemas
BARCELONA – He was Picasso’s best friend in Paris. By committing suicide in a dramatic manner during a Parisian dinner party, this tortured and impotent artist (frustrated in his female relations) reached the status of a myth. Picasso was in Spain at the moment of the terrible act, but he left a memorable painting of his dead friend which can be seen in the first room of the musée Picasso, in Paris. What really was the story of artist Casagemas, who died so young (1880-1901)? This is the central question of this long-awaited retrospective. But we will only get a tentative answer as there are but few works of the Catalan artist, among them Maison de rendez-vous which belongs to the museum.
• Carles Casagemas, el artista debajo del mito at the Museo nacional d’arte de Cataluña, from 30 October 2014 to 22 February 2015.
Pablo Picasso and William Hartmann, observed by Jacqueline. Notre-Dame-de-Vie, 1966, Museo Picasso Málaga.© Roberto Otero, Museo Picasso Málaga.
Portrait of Picasso as a T.V. viewer
MALAGA – How did Picasso, the great communicator with the Eternal through his art and photography, react when television was invented? When Jacqueline Roque bought one TV set at the beginning of the sixties, Picasso looked at it with interest, and followed in particular the programs on circuses (« La piste aux étoiles »), and on wrestling. According to curator Laurence Madeline, he echoed it in his engravings – for example in Suite 347 - with angles and characters inspired from T.V. programs or Western movies. And he demonstrated, at more than 80 years old, a curiosity and capacity to renew himself that were unaffected.
• Picasso TV at Museo Picasso in Malaga, from 30 June to 16 November 2014.
David Douglas Duncan, Picasso making a plate with a fish bone, La Californie, April 1957. Modern digital ink flow print. Donación David Douglas Duncan, 2013. © David Douglas Duncan 2014. © Sucesión Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid 2014
Duncan's eye
BARCELONA – Among the photographers who immortalised Picasso, David Douglas Duncan, 98 years old, is the eldest one still alive. After covering the combats in the Pacific and then the Korean War, the encounter in 1956 with Picasso was a radical change for him. Their friendship, marked by the great freedom Picasso allowed him to have, lasted until the death of the latter in 1973. For the 50th anniversary of the Picasso Museum in Barcelona in 2013, Duncan donated 161 photographs. They cover the last years, the “Jacqueline years » at Mougins: a lot of ceramics and engravings, a peaceful harmony with his children Claude and Paloma (prior to the brutal separation from their mother Françoise Gilot when she published Life with Picasso in 1964), the meals, the paintings, the walks in the garden.
• La Donación Douglas Duncan at the Museo Picasso in Barcelona, from 2 October 2014 to 11 January 2015.
Alfonso Ponce de León (1906-1936), Fisherman and Young Men, 1936, oil on canvas, 90 x 73 cm. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
Picasso's heirs
FLORENCE - He was a continent unto himself, who obviously influenced the art of his time, especially in Spain even though he did not return to his native country after 1934. The exhibition presents works by the master but focuses especially on identifying Picasso traits and influence in the geometric designs of Torres-García, Chillida's sculptures, in Antonio Saura or even in the work of hyperealist artist Antonio López.
• Picasso e la modernità spagnola at Palazzo Strozzi, from 25 September 2014 to 20 January 2015.
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
André Villers, a tribute to Picasso
Just like Lucien Clergue, he was a very young photographer Picasso trusted and even gave his very first camera. For twenty years, André Villers (born in 1930) documented Picasso’s daily life in Cannes (at the villa La Californie), then in Mougins, his last residence, and created some truly historic photos. André Villers was undoubtedly influenced by the master’s polymorphism and had also tried to make metamorphoses (sometimes together with Picasso himself) cutting out, repainting and recomposing his own photographs. His most recent collages (essentially from the 1990s), exhibited in a gallery very near the musée Picasso, show the influence of the brilliant Andalusian artist was not dimed by time.
• André Villers at the galerie Intuiti (16, rue des Coutures-Saint-Gervais, 75003 Paris), until 14 November 2014
BOOKS
Investigations into Picasso
The Cahiers de l’Herne are known for their monographies on the major figures in literature and the arts. This one, dedicated to Picasso, is no exception. Over nearly 400 pages, it has voices of the past intervene such as Simone de Beauvoir, Paul Morand or Maurice Rheims, as well as current specialists (among them Anne Baldassari and Claude Picasso). The slightly iconoclastic approach is obvious in the themes dealt with, which do not intend to cover all of Picasso but of shedding light on certain zones, which at times are obscure: his relationship with Staline, his surrealist theater, his influence in Latin America, his interpretation by Jung. The volume is purposely not illustrated but nevertheless it includes a very original central notebook: it is dedicated to the poems from 1935 to 1938, written on plain unheaded paper, index cards or notebooks. There is still a Picasso to be discovered.
• Picasso, Cahiers de l’Herne, 2014, 358 p., €39.
Picasso behind the mirror
How did Picasso manage the different women he knew, one after another? How did he avoid a military duty and three wars? What about his political commitment? Why did he not become a French citizen? So many questions that demonstrate the human matter in Picasso and his complexity - what actually nourished his myth.
• Les Mystères Picasso, special issue, Beaux Arts, October 2014, 108 p., €7.90.
IN BRIEF
MONTREAL - The Montreal Biennale, dedicated to contemporary creation, will be held from 22 October 2014 to 4 January 2015.
PARIS – The Fondation Louis Vuitton will be opening to the public on 27 October 2014, in a building designed by Frank Gehry and located in the bois de Boulogne, on the outskirts of Paris.
PARIS – The Monnaie de Paris will reopen its exhibit space to the public on 25 October 2014 with the exhibition Chocolate Factory, dedicated to Paul McCarthy.
PARIS - Following the vandalism which Paul McCarthy's work on place Vendôme suffered from, the AICA France (Association internationale des critiques d'art) called for a flash mob on site on 24 October at 1 p.m..
PARIS – The 41st edition of the modern and contemporary art fair, the FIAC, will be held from 23 to 26 October 2014 at the Grand Palais and in various sites throughout the capital (Jardin des Plantes, Tuileries, etc.)
PARIS – The contemporary art fait, YIA, will be held from 23 to 26 October 2014 at the Carreau du Temple, with a program 'outside the walls' as well.
PARIS – The Slick contemporary art fair will be held on pont Alexandre III, from 22 to 26 October 2014.
PARIS - The Outsider Art Fair, dedicated to outsider art, will be held at the hotel Le A, from 23 to 26 October 2014.
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
TARKOS
25 October 2014 - Besançon - FRAC Franche-Comté
Tarkos (1963-2004) was a performer and visual poet who contributed to explore the link between art and language