From the first cubist experiments of Pablo Picasso to his later works, the exhibition “Picasso & Abstraction” will highlight, from Friday to 12 February, the Spanish artist’s relationship to the abstract. It will be held at the Royal Museums of the Fine Arts of Belgium.
Throughout this chronological and thematic retrospective, the institution, in partnership with the Musée national Picasso-Paris, will unravel the relationship of opposition and inspiration that punctuates the painter’s production.
Through more than 140 works, the exhibition looks at the paradox that makes this artist, who was fiercely opposed to abstract art, an inspiration for the avant-garde Russians and American abstract expressionists who claim his heritage.
This “pendulum movement” between figuration and abstraction has marked the artist’s work for decades.
Between drawings and prints, the exhibition marks the major phases and links between Picasso and the history of abstract art, in a back-and-forth dynamic.
It also looks at a theme “intimately linked to the collection of the Picasso-Paris Museum,” that of the artist’s studio.
The studio, both a place of creation and a laboratory of experimentation, gives a glimpse of the ambiguity between reality and fiction since the imagination of the painter takes shape there.
The public is thus invited “to appreciate, on one hand, the extraordinary creativity of the artist and his ability to constantly reinvent himself” and, “on the other hand, to measure how the impulses towards the unknown remain an excellent way to better get to know each other and free ourselves from the labels that hinder us,” in the words of the museum.
To accompany spectators and visitors, a podcast (available on the Acast and Spotify platforms) offers a sound immersion into 15 works by Picasso. Meetings, conferences, masterclasses and even a cycle of four course-conferences will complete the exhibition.
