Picasso’s Kitchen - to September 30, 2018 - Museu Picasso, Barcelona

Picasso's Kitchen
Museu Picasso, Barcelona
To September 30, 2018


"An exhibition on the subject of Picasso’s kitchen? Why not? There is nothing at all incongruous in the idea, because cooking is a subtle revelation of Picasso’s art: painting, engraving, sculpture, ceramics, poetry and theatre. What is more, we should not neglect the role of the restaurant as a meeting place for the avant-gardes, from the Quatre Gats tavern in Barcelona to the cabaret Au Lapin Agile on Montmartre, where the bohemians of the time and Picasso’s little entourage would share a table."
From the exhibit catalog

"The exhibition will include the exceptional collaboration of chef Ferran Adrià who will introduce a dialogue between the artist’s creative process and contemporary culinary art. The Mauri gallery– which is the gallery of the museum devoted to contemporary art- will house an intervention from the internationally acclaimed chef, who will showcase ‘Sapiens”, his methodology for understanding and enabling the creative process in gastronomy and other fields..." [read more on the museum's blog].

"If you love food, what you eat becomes much more than a necessity: cuisine becomes a part of not only who you are, but also what you do. Such is the case for acclaimed painter Pablo Picasso, a relationship retraced in the new exhibition ‘Picasso’s Kitchen.' Named ‘La cuina de Picasso’ in Catalan, the name leaves the door open to interpretation between the physical space to cook, and the cultural cuisine the painter so loved. Picasso, in fact, was born in Malaga, but spent a significant amount of his life living and painting in Catalonia..." [read more].

"[The exhibit] provides an occasion to bring together works from every stage of Picasso’s career – some well known, many rarely seen on public display – and show the sheer range of his output. With 180 pieces on display every viewer will find their own highlights. Among mine were Picasso’s Toulouse-Lautrec-aping designs for posters and menus at Barcelona’s Els Quatre Gats bistro (c. 1900), the exquisite Blue Glass (1903), and a cardboard cutout Cuttlefish (1914) complete with googly eyes (which turn out to be an unsuspected recurring motif in Picasso’s depictions of seafood). Perhaps the triumph of the show, however, is the display of Picasso’s trompe-l’oeil ceramics from the 1950s: complete with their clay foodstuffs, they sit opposite a superb sequence of photographs by David Douglas Duncan showing Picasso delicately chewing the final scraps of flesh off a fish’s skeleton, before pressing its form into the still-wet clay of one of his dishes..." [read more].


"Since you know you're definitely going to the exhibition, here's a bit of advice, if you have the time to follow it: You know how you don't eat everything on the menu when you go to a restaurant? Well, you may just have to put your gluttonous tendencies aside here too. If you really want to see the masterpieces that have been sent over expressly from Paris or those from the archives of Picasso's relatives – especially the works from the Cubist period – do it, and savour them. You can go back another day and see the rest, as the show is on until the end of September. These 180 pieces will show you Picasso's favourite foods: a lot of fruit and veg, oysters, sea urchins, lobster, and the odd steak... " [read more].

TO VISIT

Picasso's Kitchen
Fundació Museu Picasso de Barcelona
c/ Montcada, 15-23 - 08003 Barcelona
Hours
Picasso in the Kitchen - Exhibit Website
Exhibit Catalog
Practical Information - exhibit hours, admission
Planning Your Visit
Picasso's Kitchen in Barcelona - 4 participating restaurants

To learn more
Cooking up a storm in Picasso’s kitchen - Apollo Magazine
Picasso's Kitchen - Time Out Barcelona
Food, art, and new gastronomy: a new exhibit at the Picasso Museum - Catalan News
The Picasso Museum welcomes “Picasso’s kitchen” - El Blog, Museu Picasso, Barcelona
6 Picasso exhibitions to see in Europe in 2018 - The Star
Stop making an exhibition of Picasso, says son Claude - The Times

More from arttravelbug
David Bowie Is - to July 15, 2018 - Brooklyn Museum, New York
Monet and Architecture - to July 29, 2018 - National Gallery, London
René Magritte: The Fifth Season - May 19–Oct 28, 2018 - SFMOMA

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