As from today, the rooms housing Museo Picasso Málaga’s permanent collection are refreshed, and more visitor-friendly and informative about Pablo Picasso’s work. The new design is predominantly chronological, showing how the artist’s work stretched over a period of time. It also points out its intrinsic versatility and the cyclical nature of his artistic investigations, drawing attention to his constant vocation for exploring the expressive possibilities of any medium.

By allowing for a more contemporary reading of Picasso’s work and examining his various creative facets, Museo Picasso Málaga is adapting to meet the needs and expectations of visitors today.

The exhibition narrative is the result of the close collaboration between Museo Picasso Málaga and Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (FABA), which for the next three years will be contributing with a selection of 166 works from their holdings.

More Picasso

The museum’s new exhibition concept presents more artworks – some of which have rarely or never been shown in public – and a greater diversity of styles and techniques. From today, the eleven newly-refurbished exhibition rooms at the Palacio de Buenavista will be home to 120 works by Pablo Picasso, dating from 1895 to 1972. They comprise 48 paintings, 19 sculptures, 26 pieces of ceramic, 13 drawings and 13 graphic works, as well as one sketchbook.

Among the works that are being incorporated into the new layout are Restaurant (1914), an exceptional oil painting that has been cut out and stuck onto glass, and which is shown here for the very first time; The Three Graces, a large canvas that shows a more classical and monumental Picasso; The Siesta (1932), with the rounded forms and soft colours that were so typical of the 1930s; and the iconic bronze, Head of a Bull (1942), made from the seat and handlebars of a bicycle. Along with the rest of the works on display, they give shape to an exhibition narrative that starts with the artist’s formative years, continues with the great stylistic and thematic moments of his career – cubism, the Mediterranean, portraiture – and ends with his reinterpretation of the great masters, all of them with that combination of talent, technique and expression that made Picasso the great artist of the 20th-century.

The new exhibition concept will include all the supports and media the artist employed and will enable visitors to discover different works by Picasso every three months, thanks to a three-monthly rota system. Canvases, sculptures and ceramics will be on permanent display, whereas, in compliance with conservation terms and conditions, drawings and graphic works will rotate four times a year to become part of the exhibition narrative.

Finally, Room XII of the Palacio de Buenavista will shortly be rounding off the visit with a contextualization of the artist, using information on Picasso’s life, his artistic achievements, the locations that were relevant to his work, and the people with whom he associated. Who was Picasso? Why did he change the history of art? These are just some of the questions that will be answered in this space.

This is the fifth time since it opened that Museo Picasso Málaga has renewed the layout of the collection. This time, the main purpose is to explain Picasso’s aesthetic concept more specifically, and to highlight the magnitude, transcendence, and diversity of his legacy.

The opening of Pablo Picasso. New Collection coincides with the 33 Picassos exhibition, which can be seen at MPM until 26th March. It is therefore a unique chance to visit the Palacio de Buenavista and see all 153 works by Picasso that will be on display during this time.

New lighting

To appreciate the work of Pablo Picasso in detail, the renovation work involved alterations being made to improve the lighting in the exhibition rooms, by converting from halogen to LEDs. Museo Picasso Málaga found an ally in Fundación Endesa and, thanks to a sponsorship agreement presented in January 2017, improvements have been made to the lighting in the exhibition rooms. A total of 230 spotlights and 60 reflector lamps have been installed, all with LED technology.

These alterations to the lighting also made considerable improvements to the performance of the lighting system, with low heat emissions ensuring the conservation of the artworks and enabling them to be viewed in conditions similar to natural daylight. The new lighting will also reduce energy consumption and thus lead to a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. The project serves to reinforce MPM’s commitment to the environment, which began in 2015 when it registered its carbon footprint with the Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, Fishing, Food, and the Environment.

The academic programme, publications and educational programme

The new exhibition layout will be partnered over the next three years by an academic programme organized in collaboration with universities in Spain and abroad. A number of experts will be asked to examine issues that have not yet been fully researched, with the aim of contributing to the study of Pablo Picasso’s work, and offering their results to the university community and other Picasso-related institutions, such as the Picasso museums in Paris, Barcelona and Antibes.

For the occasion, Museo Picasso Málaga will soon be presenting a lavishly illustrated book, with articles by Trevor Stark, PhD in Modern Art at Harvard University; Cécile Godefroy, PhD in History of Contemporary Art; Francisco Calvo Serraller, historian and art critic; and José Lebrero Stals, artistic director of Museo Picasso Málaga. The new catalogue will be published separately in Spanish and English, and will also contain an “album” of photographs of key places, people and events in Picasso’s life and career. Educational activities will be organized based on the new exhibition concept, with the purpose of enhancing the perception of Picasso’s creative process and renewing public interest in revisiting the museum. Over the next few weeks, Museo Picasso Málaga has arranged several visits for Malaga-based artistic, educational, and social groups. In May, training sessions for tourist guides will be held, using a methodology aimed at providing numerous tools to help them in their profession.

As well as being able to use an audio guide service in ten languages, which comes free with the price of admission, all visitors to Museo Picasso Málaga will be offered guided tours given by a member of the museum’s educational staff, every Saturday at 1.00pm in Spanish, and on Wednesdays at noon in English.

For schools and universities, visits and workshops will introduce different educational levels to Picasso’s work. These visits are free of charge for public secondary schools in Andalusia. Bilingual visits and tours for teaching staff complete the educational programme, and are always adapted to suit the characteristics of the participants.

A museum for everyone

Museo Picasso Málaga always offers free admission to accredited visitors with disabilities, SEPE-registered job-seekers, children up to the age of 16, card-holding students from Universidad de Málaga, accredited teachers, and members of ICOM. For all visitors, admission is always free on Sundays for the last two hours before closing time. Discounts are available for visitors aged over 65, holders of the Carné Joven Euro, and accredited students aged under 26.