MG+MSUM

EXHIBITION | Picasso: Writing into Drawing
18 November 2021 — 20 February 2022
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Picasso: Writing into Drawing

International Exhibition

 

Curator: Marko Jenko

 

Duration: 18 November 2021 - 20 February 2022
Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova. +MSUM

 

Catalogue

Editor: Marko Jenko

Authors: Riccardo Caldura (Academy of Fine Arts, Venice), Jana Intihar Ferjan (MG+MSUM), Marko Jenko (MG+MSUM)

Designer: Jagoda Jejčič

 

Honorary Patronage: Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain in Slovenia

 

Moderna galerija would like to sincerely thank the owners of Picasso’s works for their kindness and help in such difficult times.

 

Photo Dejan Habicht

 

This fall, Moderna galerija pays homage to Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), one of the most important artists of all time and a pioneer of 20th century art. October 25 marks the 140th anniversary of his birth. We are celebrating this occasion with an exhibition of a selection of his illustrations from the mid-century period. All are on loan from a private collection in Italy. These illustrations show how Picasso, also from the point of view of printing techniques, approached the question of illustrating different literary genres or the illustrated book, which can slowly transform into an artist’s book, especially when handwriting is concerned since it sometimes goes directly into drawing or painting and consequently further away from the usual understanding of illustration, especially in the sense of narration enhanced by imagery. The illustrations on view are:

 

-       Max Jacob’s Chronicle of Heroic Times (6 prints)

-       Pierre Reverdy’s Song of the Dead (125 prints)

-       20 Poems by Luis de Góngora (41 prints)

-       Count de Buffon’s Natural History (31 prints)

-       Prosper Mérimée’s Carmen (38 prints)

-       Picasso’s Le Carmen des Carmen (6 prints)

-       Fernand Crommelynck’s The Magnificent Cuckold (12 prints)

 

Picasso’s prints are one of the hallmarks of his inexhaustible artistic research. He was constantly occupied by printmaking: from his first experiences with etching, dating back to 1899, and all the way to his death in 1973. He created an extensive oeuvre, covering all the techniques of artistic reproduction (etching, dry-point, engraving, woodcut, lithography, linocut). The results were usually groundbreaking due to their high quality and personal stamp in experimenting with printmaking. In Picasso’s work, illustrated books represent an autonomous field. His illustrations were often a consequence of his meetings and friendships with poets and writers, mostly his contemporaries with whom he maintained close contacts, sometimes for decades, shared their feelings and thoughts, no matter the differences in their respective modes of expression.

 

The exhibited selection of illustrations or prints shows us not only the perhaps more instantaneously recognizable examples, both in terms of subject and form, but also three examples that can shift our perspective of Picasso’s work. Thus it is important to stress the illustrations of Pierre Reverdy’s and Luis de Góngora’s poetry. In Reverdy’s case, a closer look at the “arabesques” or the decorative variations of the most elementary forms of line or stroke, dot and circle touching or fusing together reveals a kind of “imitation” of writing, which becomes an integral part of the book and its illustrations − that is, if one can still speak of illustration here. We witness the passage from writing to drawing or painting, thus moving further away from immediate meaning or readability, as if punctuation marks or letters suddenly became autonomous, freed of their function, becoming a sign of a certain excess in writing or handwriting, and opening a more plastic perception of what was written down. Handwriting thickens and becomes layered, bereft of meaning. The place of the illustration also changes – transferring onto the poet himself. This is why portraits of poets and writers abound among illustrations. To continue, what was once merely a letter on paper, now suddenly gives off an effect of life, oscillating between nothing and everything, between the absence of all meaning and the illusory hint of a higher Meaning, based on a meaningless blot. It is worth noting that the edition of Reverdy’s book on view at Moderna galerija is the only one in the world with Reverdy’s handwritten dedication to his friend Roger Brielle.

 

Picasso approached Luis de Góngora’s poetry in a similar way. He simply transcribed the poems in his own hand. The illustration thus also consists in a handwritten transcription. However, such an approach also points to silence and not to reciting poetry. The key aspect is the silence of the eye, of what is in writing for the eye only. A non-reading eye. How to capture or create the completely formal moment when writing or the quite literally graphic, strictly non-psychological logic of leaving a mark on a surface starts showing the intervention of an eye, which does not only read, and which is not simply an organ with a biological function? The moment when writing is thrown off its usual track, thereby showing an excess that is at work already in the seemingly already known, self-evident frame of reading and writing?

 

The third case is Picasso’s unusual “illustrations” for Max Jacob, especially those on the cover. In 1956, twelve years after Jacob’s horrific death, his chronicle was published in a limited edition, together with Picasso’s illustrations. Picasso’s main contribution was three portraits of Jacob (the first one from 1953), a nude and quite unusual abstract compositions for the cover and case, which may seem decorative at first, but immediately remind us of scribbling – quite surprising for someone who so despised abstract art. These “illustrations” are completely non-illustrating in terms of narration. They too oscillate between nothing and everything.

 

The curator Marko Jenko’s guided tours will be announced on Moderna galerija’s website, its social network profiles, and newsletter mg-info@mg-lj.si. They will be held in accordance with epidemiological measures. For more information about our public programs, please write to: izobrazevanje@mg-lj.si 

 

 

The exhibition and catalogue are supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.

 

Honorary Patronage: Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain in Slovenia.

 
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