The Museo Picasso Málaga has on several occasions presented part of the archive of the Roberto Otero Photographic Archive in exhibitions.
Roberto Otero's photographs as a whole can be said to resemble to an extent a family album, precisely because of a constant, uniform repetition of moments and emotions, places and situations. Similarly, the appearance of certain ‘transgressions’, such as the grain of the photographs, unnatural angles of view or pictures taken inadvertently, also points to a family album. The fact that Otero is not an excellent photographer who is sure of himself, that he takes his pictures with several shots, causes him to photograph the subject over and over again to ensure that he gets it right. This imbues his pictures with generosity and a very specific nature. The images thus repeat the same situations, and it is this repetition that allows for movements or montages of both real and imaginary sequences, lending his work (albeit unpremeditatedly) a constant narrativity, sequentiality and, in a certain sense, dramatic tension.
17/07/06 — 03/09/06
On 17th July 2006, the first exhibition of the Roberto Otero Photographic Archive was held on the occasion of its recent acquisition on 16th December 2005. To present this new acquisition to the public, the Museo Picasso Málaga organized an exhibition, entitled Picasso Seen By Otero, featuring a selection of the most representative photographs from the Roberto Otero Photographic Archive. The exhibition, open until 3 September, comprised a total of 62 images – 28 in color and 34 in black and white – selected according to their documentary value. They showed the artist with his family, friends and visitors over the last decade of his life, with particular emphasis on pictures taken in the summer of 1966, which the Albertis spent in the south of France.
16/06/08 — 20/08/08
With the title Moments and Gazes. Picasso as Seen by Otero, the Museo Picasso Málaga presented a new selection of photographs by Roberto Otero, part of the Archive of Museo Picasso Málaga. The exhibition contained close to one hundred images that provided viewers with a look into the everyday atmosphere surrounding Picasso, along with his family and friends. It was a different view of the man behind the myth.
05/07/12 — 23/09/12
Summer 2012, the Museo Picasso Málaga showed a selection of 64 photographs from Roberto Otero Photographic Archive, snapshots which were chosen by the critic and art curator, Alberto Martín; the display grouped them into 13 sequences of images which provide new readings of situations, places and spaces from the intimate life of Pablo Picasso: working in the workshop, in the company of his wife Jacqueline Roque, preparing an exhibition, contemplating his art collection… The images recreated the atmosphere of his home, a place where he also used to receive visits from friends and acquaintances, such as the painters Joan Miró and Edouard Pignon, his childhood friend Manuel Pallarès, the photographer Edward Steichen, the collector Joseph Hirshhorn, Rafael Alberti and Roberto Otero himself, among others.
20/06/20 — 08/01/21
The exhibition comprised over 60 pictures that show the everyday life of Pablo Picasso: at work on his last exhibition of ceramics in Vallauris, or receiving visits from friends and acquaintances such as Joan Miró and Rafael Alberti, in the company of his wife, Jacqueline Roque. They also portray the artist during his creative process, and the artworks with which he lived every day.
29/09/21 — 12/12/21
The over sixty images that make up this exhibition at the Centro Andaluz de la Fotografía in Almería show the everyday life of Pablo Picasso, either at work on his latest exhibition of ceramics in Vallauris, or receiving visits from friends and acquaintances such as Joan Miró or Rafael Alberti, in the company of his wife, Jacqueline Roque. This exhibition was curated by José Lebrero Stals, artistic director of the Museo Picasso Málaga at the moment, and included the screening of “El joven Picasso”, a documentary by British filmmaker Phil Grabsky that was filmed in Málaga, Barcelona and Paris, and which follows the footsteps of the artist who was to change the history of art.
06/07/22 — 08/01/23
This exhibition showed some of the unpublished archive materials in the Roberto Otero Photographic Archive. They comprised handwritten notebooks in which the photographer wrote down the conversations he had with Pablo Picasso. In the prologue of his book of photographs and writings, Recuerdos de Picasso (Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Archivos,1984) Otero says that “out of hundreds of books, there are only two books of conversations with Picasso, and both of them are by photographers, Brassaï and Otero, his only two friends who appear to have the idea of systematically writing down their talks with the artist”. The layout of his book Lejos de España (Far from Spain), which was published by Editorial Dopesa in 1975 after having been published a year earlier by Harry N. Abrams in New York, could also be seen, along with other photos by Roberto Otero displayed at the Gmurzynska gallery at Art Basel 1997.
17/01/23 — 09/04/23
This exhibition stressed what is unique about the Otero archive and ultimately makes it what it is. It underpins the constancy, closeness and obsessive repetition that characterise this group of images. Roberto Otero did not take charismatic or highly iconic photographs of Picasso. Nor is he a photographer with a recognisable style or aesthetic programme. Otero’s position and rhythm lie in the rapport that comes from closeness and in the continuity and repetition of shots. His rhythm is slow, daily, everyday and intimate. If his images as a whole can be said to resemble to an extent a family album, it is precisely because of this constant, uniform repetition of moments and emotions, places and situations.
