Calder – Picasso

An art historian museologist as visitor at Musée Picasso, Paris

Open until 25 August 2019

Alexander Calder (American, 1898-1976) and Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) – two of the most seminal figures of twentieth-century art – innovated entirely new ways to perceive grand themes. While the resonances between them are filled with endless possibilities, a key connection can be found specifically in their exploration of the void, or the absence of space, which both artists defined from the figure through to abstraction.

Calder and Picasso wanted to present or represent non-space, whether by giving definition to a subtraction of mass, as in Calder’s sculpture, or by expressing contortions of time, as in Picasso’s portraits. Calder externalized the void through curiosity and intellectual expansion, engaging unseen forces in ways that challenge dimensional limitations, or what he called -grandeur-immense-. Picasso personalized the exploration, focusing on the emotional inner self. He brought himself inside each character and collapsed the interpersonal space between author and subject.

The exhibition will comprise approximately 120 works that explore how these two artists, each in his own very different ways, engaged with the void and all that it implies about a world where mass is unsettled by the absence of mass and where, at the center of anything and everything, what we discover is a vacuum.

(Text from webside of Musée Picasso)

I visited this interesting exhibition on 30 May 2019. I’ve made some photos of which I’ll share a selection now. Come with me and enjoy art world of Calder and Picasso together.

Exhibition interior

Detail of exhibition with wire sculptures of Alexander Calder

Exhibition interior

Exhibition interior

Staircase of museum with a flying sculpture of Calder

Exhibition interior

Exhibition interior

Exhibition interior

Exhibition interior

Staircase of museum with a flying sculpture of Calder

Staircase of museum with artworks

Staircase of museum with a flying sculpture of Calder

Exhibition enterior

Dancer sculptures of Picasso and Calder together

Dancers by Calder and Picasso

Dancer figures of Calder and Picasso

Dancer figures of Calder and Picasso

Staircase of museum with a flying sculpture of Alexander Calder

With a red sculpture of Alexander Calder

Exhibition interior

Exhibition interior

Sitting with a painting of Picasso and a flyinfg sculpture of Calder