The Echo of Picasso at the Museo Picasso Málaga features works by more than fifty artists, including Willem de Kooning, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois and Jeff Koons, some of them in direct dialogue with pieces by Picasso, but above all as an echo of the artist’s work.

The show explores the effect of Picasso’s artistic practices on the contemporary age and on today’s globalised art scene. It is divided into two sections: the first includes pieces by Picasso alongside artists who acknowledged his influence on their work, such as Francis Bacon, Martin Kippenberger and Maria Lassnig, while the second presents contemporary artists like Claire Tabouret and Rashid Johnson.

Curated by Eric Troncy, The Echo of Picasso is part of the international Picasso Celebration 1973–2023 programme and has been organised with the collaboration of the Fundación Almine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso and the support of the Musée national Picasso-Paris and the Spanish National Commission for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso, with Telefónica as a collaborating company for the Spanish programme. Fundación ‘la Caixa’ is sponsoring this exhibition. From October 3, 2023 to March 31, 2024, the museum is hosting the exhibition The Echo of Picasso. Pablo Picasso worked in an extraordinary variety of styles and had an enormous influence on twentieth-century art that has continued into the twenty-first century. Besides Cubism, his main contribution to modern art is the freedom that characterises every aspect of his paintings, sculptures and graphic works. It is generally agreed that Picasso made a profound impact on the art world, and it may be said that no previous artist had such a mass of followers and admirers, as well as critics.

The exhibition, curated by Eric Troncy, is based precisely on this effect of Picasso’s artistic practices on the contemporary world and, above all, on today’s globalised art scene, and brings together works by more than fifty artists in dialogue with the Málaga-born creator. As Troncy points out, the exhibition shows works that echo Picasso’s art, whether they occurred ‘in real time’ during the artist’s lifetime or in the contemporary period. Rather than attempting to establish an exhaustive catalogue, which would probably involve most artists of the past hundred years, the exhibition proposes a dreamlike journey through the echoes of Pablo Picasso’s astonishing experimentation experienced by various periods, styles and generations in the oeuvre of Willem de Kooning, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois and Jeff Koons among many others. In this respect, the exhibition, which includes a selection of influential works by Picasso himself, acts as an echo in an enclosed space, exploring the visual experience of these resonances through exceptional loans of works by artists from the 1920s to the present day.

Eric Troncy is a French art critic and curator. He has organised more than a hundred monographic exhibitions at the Le Consortium art centre in Dijon, of which he is co-director, as well as at many other renowned art institutions.

PICASSO CELEBRATION 1973–2023

April 8, 2023 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, an event on which the celebration of his oeuvre and artistic legacy in France, Spain and internationally is centred. The French and Spanish governments are working together on an international programme through a bi-national commission that brings together the cultural and diplomatic administrations of BOTH countries.

The Picasso Celebration 1973–2023 revolves around some fifty exhibitions and events at renowned cultural institutions in Europe and America that, together, carry out a historiographical analysis of Picasso’s work. The commemoration, accompanied by official celebrations in France and Spain, will make it possible to take stock of the research and interpretations of the artist’s work, especially during an important international symposium in autumn 2023, which also coincides with the opening of the Centre d’Etudes Picasso in Paris.

The Musée national Picasso-Paris and the Spanish National Commission for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso are pleased to support this exceptional programme, with Teléfonica as collaborating company in Spain. Telefónica, a leading global telecommunications company in the provision of technological, digital and communication solutions and services, will be present at all the events celebrating the work of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso on the anniversary of his death. With this initiative, Telefónica wishes to join in the dissemination of the oeuvre of the great Málaga-born artist, hailed as one of the most prolific painters of all time, by making his art more accessible to all audiences. Fundación ‘la Caixa’ is sponsoring this exhibition. Our thanks also go to Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, grandson of the artist and president of the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Madrid (FABA), a member of the Franco-Spanish commission in charge of this celebration, as well as trustee and president of the Executive Council of the Museo Picasso Málaga.