A propósito de… Pity and Terror. Picasso’s Path to Guernica

April 5 – September 4 2017
Activity free of charge
Lugar

Meeting point: connection between the Sabatini and Nouvel Buildings, first floor

Capacity
25 people (maximum)
Duration
one hour
  • Registration: Required. Registration will begin 30 minutes prior to the tour start time and is conducted on a strictly first-come, first-serve basis. Please consult with the museum staff located at the Sabatini/Nouvel Building Connection to register.
  • Accessibility: All visits offer magnetic loops for the hearing impaired. Please request 10 minutes prior to the visit´s start time from a mediator at the Sabatini/Nouvel meeting point.

This programme is offered thanks to Fundación Banco Santander

Pablo Picasso. Woman Dressing Her Hair, Royan, June 1940. Oil on canvas. New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Louis Reinhardt Smith Bequest, 1995. © 2017. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/ Scala Florence. © Sucessión Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2017
Pablo Picasso. Woman Dressing Her Hair, Royan, June 1940. Oil on canvas. New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Louis Reinhardt Smith Bequest, 1995. © 2017. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/ Scala Florence. © Sucessión Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2017

Throughout the eight decades since the unveiling of Guernica in the Spanish Republic’s pavilion at the Paris World´s Fair, Picasso’s painting has become our culture’s Tragic Scene, a paradigm of death and violence administered in the context of modern war, and of the fragility of life itself. In taking on the mural commission, the artist was well aware of the difficulty of the task– the representation of the public, the political, the large-scale, the heroic and compassionate were unknown territory to him. However, despite the unfamiliarity of these subjects, this exhibition shows how the path to Guernica began in the mid-1920s, as evidenced by series of preoccupations made manifest upon the canvas: fear, horror and monstrosity are exposed as intrinsic to the modern human condition, revealing the origins of what will ultimately become the imaginary of Guernica.

A propósito de… are gallery conversations that strive to make visible the discursive lines that traverse the museum’s exhibitions in order to connect them to contemporary reality.