February 7, 2006
By Lucille Davie
PABLO'S in town and he's looking distinctly African. Go and meet him at the Picasso and Africa exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery.
Some 84 of the master's works have hit town, courtesy of Standard Bank, the French embassy, the French Institute of South Africa, Air France, Business Arts South Africa and the Iziko South African National Gallery, in collaboration with the Picasso Museum in Paris.
Posters for the Picasso and Africa exhibition
The exhibition took three years to put together, said Standard Bank Art Sponsorship Manager Mandy van der Spuy at the press opening on Monday, and was not without its trials and tribulations. It had the blessing of President Thabo Mbeki and French President Jacques Chirac, she added.
It was decided at the first meeting of the museum officials in 2003 that instead of a "mini-retrospective", an exhibition to explore "new possibilities, open new doors" would be more challenging. Hence an exhibition that looks at the "relationship between Africa and Picasso and to offer, for the first time, and in Africa, a dialogue between the African continent and the artist whose work encompasses more of the art of the previous century than that of any other".
On sale at the gallery is a 221-page book entitled Picasso and Africa, T-shirts, mugs and posters. The book includes comments from Chirac and Mbeki.
"It is fitting that the work of Pablo Picasso, whose artistic output is one of the richest in the history of art of the last century, should in a sense be returned to the African continent that so profoundly marked the genesis of this work and thus of modern art in general," Chirac says.
Mbeki concurs. "The exhibition makes a dual contribution to the ideal of an African Renaissance. Firstly, it places South Africa firmly at the forefront as the African host of international exhibitions of such stature. Secondly, it is a reminder of a proud cultural heritage that highlights the influence of African art on Europe's artists and their valuable artefacts."
Laurence Madeline, curator of the Picasso Museum in Paris, helped curate the exhibition. She said it had been "a long and passionate adventure. I have been very moved."
She added that it was a chance to "renew both his art and the art of the 20th century". Difficult choices had to be made, she explained, as to which works would be included in the exhibition. Some of Picasso's works are too fragile to move, and the New York Museum of Modern Art, which has a fair collection of his works, would simply not agree to let these travel.
Works in this exhibition have never before been seen in public. Most of them come from the Picasso Museum in Paris, while three come from the Picasso family collection.
Marilyn Martin, director of art collections at the Iziko South African National Gallery, said it had been a slow process to enter the international realms of art loans and exchange. Picasso and Africa follows the successful exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery of Marc Chagall in 2000 and Joan Mirķ in 2002.
African sculptures interfacing with Picasso's works
An integral part of the exhibition is a display of African masks, from private and public collections in South Africa. Most of the artists are unknown, but they perfectly capture the influence of African art on Picasso. "We are validating anonymous artists who are being exhibited," Martin said.
When Picasso first saw African art in the Trocadero Museum in Paris in 1907 he said: "The masks, they were not sculptures like the others. Not at all. They were magical things . . . intercessors . . . against everything; against unknown, menacing spirits."
Part of the exhibition includes a brief history of Picasso, including quotes from him and other important people in his life. In 1965 he is recorded as saying: "Painting: it's a form of magic that interposes itself between us and the hostile universe, a means of seizing power by imposing a form on our terrors as well as on our desires. The day I understood that, I realised that I had found my path."
Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain in 1881 and started drawing under his father's direction at the age of seven. His first exhibition was in 1900, at the age of 19. He had a major influence on art in the 20th century, creating cubism as an art style. He died in France in 1973, at the age of 92. In his lifetime he produced more than 20 000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and ceramics.
The exhibition opens on Friday, 10 February and runs until 26 March. It then moves to the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, where it runs from 13 April until 21 May.
The Standard Bank Gallery is on the corner of Simmonds and Frederick streets. It is open on Mondays to Fridays from 8am to 4.30pm, and from 9am to 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
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