Picasso and Exile, a History of Spanish Art in Resistance

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Picasso and exile, a history of Spanish art in resistance by Aurélien Guichard #TOULOUSE Les Abattoirs, Musée-Frac Occitanie Toulouse, in collaboration with the Picasso Museum in Paris, are presenting an exhibition devoted for the first time to the relationship between Picasso and the Spanish exile. Deployed on the three floors of the Abattoirs, it explores how the historical and personal upheaval of exile affected Picasso and many of his contemporary artists. This open exhibition also proposes to put the works of Picasso and artists of the Spanish diaspora in dialogue with works of contemporary artists. Picasso was not a war exile like most of his contemporaries, he was a voluntary emigrant artist, who became exiled in spite of himself because he was unable to return to his native Spain. This unconditional link to the country forged formidable relations with all the exiles it supported, especially artists, and strengthened its commitment against Franco's regime and for peace. The exhibition presents the work of these Spanish artists and then deals with the theme of the cultural, artistic and humanist resistance that continued in the aftermath of the Second World War. The exhibition is spread throughout the region in about twenty locations with nearly seventy artists. An exhibition with strong local and international historical resonance, since in 1939 no less than 500,000 Spanish refugees crossed the border in less than two months to transit through the entire region in refugee camps, often in undignified living conditions reminiscent of today's refugee camps all over the world. On the ground floor there is a special focus on the works created during the Retreat, by artists in the refugee camps. Art as an act of resistance, art as a breath of life, as a means of subsistence and participation in local life, art as a tool for reconstruction. The exhibition opens with a panoramic work of art created in one of the small Occitan churches in the region. In the adjoining room, touching works, drawings, photographs, watercolours, document the sad life in the camps. Made on all kinds of supports; canvases of potato sack jutes, small notebooks, sheets of paper, they are put in dialogue with a work by Nissrine Seffar. A contemporary work made from photographs of the Rivesaltes camp reproduced on plaster bricks. Eighty bricks embellished with yellow ochre (a paradoxical colour for the artist; forbidden in the case of the yellow line and free because it is a solar colour), lined up in a row that seems to scroll like a film. Nissrine attempts with this plaster a kind of repair like the plaster used in medicine. A magnificent work that gives colour and a dose of hope in this room with rather sad accents. The tour continues by presenting the works of artists from the Spanish exile around Picasso: Luiz Fernandez, Oscar Dominguez, Pedro Flores, Antoni Clavé... and above all a magnificent Roberta Gonzalez who, in the shadow of her husband Julio Gonzalez, created little marvels. The exhibition also presents works of resistance and relates the various militant exhibitions and Picasso's relationship with Spain. Thus we see Picasso confronted with history, the Popular Front, the Spanish War, Picasso and Franco, Picasso and the Second World War and Picasso as the last Don Quixote in his nostalgia for Spain, notably with Guernica. The travels of this mythical painting, which has become a work of struggle and peace, are evoked, and here it is fetishized with the exhibition of the remains of its old frame. A sort of archaeo-artistic skeleton as can be seen in natural history museums. This fascinating painting, a mythological and highly political work, has been the subject of numerous revisits, reinterpretations or tributes by numerous artists. Here are a few examples: filmed with the films of Alain Resnais, Robert Flaherty or plastic with the impressive revisiting in bas-relief on wooden panels by Damien Deroubaix. In the basement we are greeted by the monumental theatre stage curtain created in 1936, La Dépouille du Minotaure en Costume d'Arlequin, donated by the artist in 1965 to the City of Toulouse, then capital of the Spanish exile. More than thirty works by Picasso (paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures and books) are presented, in addition to more than a hundred photographs and unpublished archives, including personal archives of Pablo Picasso, kept at the Musée national Picasso- Paris. Then, on the first floor of this magnificent building, the tour offers "Dulces Sueños", which focuses on the Spanish contemporary scene with a dozen Spanish artists of the younger generation, native or from Latin America, whose works are marked by commitment. It opens with a video by Carlos Aires; an astonishing tango, the Argentinean dance of exile, performed in a historical baroque setting by two helmeted policemen in battle dress, to the sound of Sweet Dreams (Dulces Sueños) by Eurythmics. An exhibition where revolutionary songs and "hasta siempre" still resound. With the works of : Edouard Arroyo - Marti Bas - Friedel Bohny-Reiter - Xavier Bueno - Luis Buñuel - Robert Capa - Ubaldo Izquierdo Carvajal - Antoni Clavé - Mercedes Comaposada Guillé - Honorio Garcia Condoy - Pere Créixams - Oscar Domiguez - Equipo Cronica - Apel/les Fenosa - Luis Fernandez - J.Fin (Josefin Vilato) - Robert Flaherty - Pedro Flores - Carles Fontserè - Julio Gonzalez - Roberta Gonzalez - Francisco de Goya - Emilio Grau Sala - Hans Hartung - Joan Jordà - Antonio Rodriguez Luna - Baltasar Lobo - Dora Maar - Josep Marti - Blasco Mentor - François Miro - Joan Miro - Manuel Angeles Ortiz - Gines Parra - José Palmeiro - Joaquim Peinado - Pablo Picasso - Josep Ponti - Joan Rebull - Robert Hessens and others; Alain Resnais - Roa - Antonio Saura - Antoni Tàpies - Bonaventura Trepat - Remedios Varo - Javier Vilato - Hernando Viñes Guest Contemporary Artists : Pilar Albarracin - Carlos Aires - Aniel Adujar - Babi Badalov - Eduardo Basualdo - Jordi Colomer - Hélène Delprat - Democracia - Damien Deroubaix - Esther Ferrer - Dora Garcia - Nuria Güell - Amjad Ghannam &; Khaled Hourani - Glend Leon - Robert Longo - Eugenio Merino - Chiara Mulas &; Serge Pey - Daniela Ortiz - Pedro G. Romero - Nissrine Seffar - Oriol Vilanova 15 March / 25 August 2019 Picasso and the Exile, a history of Spanish art in resistance Les Abattoirs, Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse 76 allées Charles de Fitte 31300 Toulouse 30 May 2019 #Picasso #Toulouse copyright: All rights reserved

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