The French Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, and the Spanish Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, presented today in Madrid the programme of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death. Around 50 events are planned in different countries. To date, two conferences and 42 exhibitions are scheduled: 16 in Spain, 12 in France, seven in the United States, two in Germany, two in Switzerland, one in the Principality of Monaco, one in Romania and one in Belgium.
Full, inventive and often radical, Picasso’s work is still a real fascination around the world. For its artistic strength, of course. But also for its political strength. It is constantly reviewed, revisited, reinterpreted.” declared the French Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak. She adds: It is this formidable posterity, this double culture, and this still so current work that the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 intends to explore, question and share with a new generation born in the 21st century, and enable him to discover and understand it in the light of our times.”
The Spanish Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, affirmed Picasso’s artistic heritage and the relevance of his work. If there is an artist defining the XXth There is no doubt that what he represents in all its cruelty, violence, passion, excesses and contradictions is Pablo Picasso,” he said.
In the room of the Reina Sofía Museum, which houses the Guernica, the minister insisted on the celebration of the Picasso year: I am sure that it will allow us to enjoy again, or perhaps for the first time, an art that is still alive. This celebration will also allow us to look at it from a contemporary perspective, helping us to understand through today’s eyes an artist who is still alive 50 years after his death.”
The extensive programme will begin next October, with temporary exhibitions on the painter’s face to be held in various museums across the country, and will continue throughout 2023, the year of the anniversary commemoration, where Picasso has been dead for 50 years. He died in the French town of Mougins on 8 April 1973. This date marks the celebration of his work and artistic heritage in Spain and France, as well as internationally.
Find all the official programming of the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 in spanish and in englishman