The „Picasso Effect” Exhibition is produced between September 27, 2023, and January 8, 2024, at MARe/Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest: 46 works (paintings, drawings, engravings) signed by Pablo Picasso, face to face with 65 works (paintings, sculptures, photography, ceramics, graffiti) signed by 37 contemporary Romanian artists, influenced by the work of the most important figure of modern art.
Among the Romanian artists exhibited are Ion Grigorescu, Mircea Cantor, Ștefan Bertalan, Alma Redlinger, Neculai Păduraru, Vasile Gorduz, Florin Mitroi, Victor Man, Silvia Radu, Dumitru Gorzo.
The 46 works wandered along beaten paths, from the Musée National Picasso-Paris to Bucharest, for three days and three nights – like a noble wedding.
In the year that marks half a century since Picasso’s physical disappearance, eight countries worldwide, including Romania, celebrate this anniversary through thematic exhibitions. Romania does this at MARe – Museum of Recent Art. Tickets are on sale and can be purchased on the mare.ro website.
The „Picasso Effect” is one of the most impressive exhibitions in Eastern Europe and certainly the most important in Romania – among the eight countries participating in the Célébration Picasso: 1973-2023 program.
The event is organized in partnership with the Musée National Picasso-Paris. It celebrates 50 years since the death of Pablo Picasso through a program that includes 42 other museums worldwide. Romania is the only country in Central and Eastern Europe included in the large project launched by France and Spain.
October 2023 also marks five years since the opening of the MARe/Museum of Recent Art in Bucharest.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an impressive bilingual catalogue, in which the exhibited works will be reproduced (in full colour) (over 100 large illustrations), analyzed in two introductory texts, signed by Romanian and French art historians.
During the exhibition, MARe/Muzeul de Artă Recentă will hold a series of courses for children within its established program, MARe de Mic, calibrated to the themes, subjects, techniques, images and experiences provoked by the Picasso Effect exhibition.
Also, in January, the Museum of Recent Art will organize a two-day international symposium dedicated to Picasso and his influence on (Eastern) European art after the Second World War. Art historians from Romania, France, Germany and the Czech Republic.
„The Picasso effect presents the echo of Picasso’s work and personality on Romanian art from the 1960s to the present through works by 37 contemporary artists. Along with a series of works that appeared in the MNAR exhibition in 1968, MARe brings a representative selection of paintings from the Musée National Picasso-Paris, covering Picasso’s creation from 1908 to 1972. The actuality of Picasso, also visible in the murals integrated into the exhibition, shows that the significant figure of modernism has entered the idiom of the day and the street. Picasso has achieved his maximum possible effect: he blends into the cultural background noise, globally intelligible. Can a deeper effect be imagined than this (con)melting of the voice of a single creator in the language and pulse of the daily life of our times?”
Erwin Kessler, director of the Bucharest Museum of Recent Art and curator of the exhibition.
Picasso Effect Exhibition in Bucharest is an event presented by MARe/Museum of Recent Art and UniCredit Bank, in partnership with the Capital City Hall, through ARCUB – Cultural Center of the City of Bucharest, Musée national Picasso-Paris, French Embassy, French Institute in Romania.
Photo: René Burri / Magnum Photos. FRANCE. Provence-Alpes-CA’te d’Azur region. Town of Cannes. Vila „La Californie”. 1957.
