He has also criticized the adjective “inquisitive” of Picasso’s abuser: “Saying it is exaggerated”
MADRID, 4 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Carlos Alberdi, responsible for the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023, celebrates this Saturday, April 8, the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the artist who, in his opinion, is sometimes painted in a “caricatured” way representing an “absolute evil”. , when talking about the painter and his relationships with women.
“In some cases, Picasso’s relationships are talked about in an exaggerated way, he is no longer there to defend himself or ask questions. Some authors paint a caricatured Picasso as if he were an absolute villain. He was a gentleman with his flaws but also very generous and very affectionate”, he pointed out in an interview with Europa Press.
Alberdi recalled that, in an interview with Paloma Picasso, the artist’s daughter, she acknowledged that her father was a macho but the person in charge of the Picasso Year has rejected the adjective “inquisitor” with which Pablo Picasso is currently associated. “To say that he is abusive is to put that adjective in a caricatured and exaggerated way,” he stressed.
To explore this issue, Alberdi has stressed that one must be “fair” with Picasso when analyzing certain issues of his life and has asked that “rigorous” and “reliable” sources should be used, such as the book of his partners, Fernande Olivier (‘Intimate Memories Written for Picasso’) and Françoise Gilot (‘My Life with Picasso’).
“In these books there are reproaches to Picasso but also acknowledgments. He was a normal man but not that monster that in some cases wants to be seen. They leave their criticism first-hand but within a context”, he has affirmed, before insisting that “sources must be subjected to some criticism because sometimes one falls in love with the most striking headline and exaggerating is not the best thing to do”.
At this point, Alberdi understands that it is “fair” to separate the artist’s personal life but stressing the achievements obtained in the disciplines and knowing that “a total division” can never be made. “Curiosity is free, it is healthy and it is part of life. It is reasonable. Art has some rules and there is a part in which one focuses on the work, what it has managed to find out, the light it has shed on certain problems. But at the same time, in social life, there is also an interest in knowing what people were like in their lives and in their relationships”, he indicated.
Despite these criticisms of the figure of Picasso, the organizing team accepted the “interest” that there was on the part of the public in these aspects. For this reason, there are three exhibitions that deal with the theme of Picasso and women – two have already taken place: in Paris and in Münster (Germany) – but Alberdi has repeated that the important thing is to place his great finds in the center.
“We know that this is there and today the conversations cannot be erased. It is part of the celebration. However, from an organizational point of view, the tribute is celebrated for what he represented as an artist and it is what should be in the center of the activity. Obviously, also the controversies and more today that trying to avoid a controversy is nothing other than fattening it”, he admitted.
The Picasso Celebration, which started last September in 2022, revolves around fifty exhibitions and events that, as a whole, address a historiographical analysis of Picasso’s work at the venues of renowned cultural institutions in Europe and the United States. .
The commissioner of the Picasso Celebration has admitted that certain acts have been changed in date, as the fiftieth anniversary of his death coincided on the weekend. However, he has celebrated that in recent days the exhibition ‘Picasso, white I do not remember blue’ on the artist has been inaugurated in A Coruña and that this Wednesday the exhibition ‘Picasso and the ancient world’ opens to the public at the Archaeological Museum National of Naples (Italy).
“The official program is closed, although until the end of the year there may be some surprises because some institutions carry out actions on their own,” he stated.
Up to now, the exhibitions carried out and their reception have been “extraordinary”, as Alberdi has celebrated, which has highlighted the “exceptionality” of an international initiative like this, on a “key” artist of the 20th century and who with his findings has managed to form part of the cultural heritage of the world.
“Last fall there were three exhibitions that had great critical and public success, but especially the Thyssen Museum exhibition on Picasso and Chanel had more than 100,000 visitors and the exhibition ‘Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Dealer and publisher’ at the Museu Picasso (Barcelona) also had more than 100,000 spectators, in addition to having the exceptional visit of the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and the President of Spain, Pedro Sánchez”, he detailed.
This success is due, in the opinion of the person in charge, to the fact that Picasso is a “magnet” for the public and the museums, which have dared to reread the artist to delve into topics that until now had been looked at in a “superficial” way, such as the painter’s relationship with fashion. “Picasso changed the way of looking at reality. For example, ‘Guernica’ treats reality to pieces as opposed to the classical way of treating reality in a harmonious way”, he pointed out.
In addition, Alberdi has praised Picasso’s “freedom” as a person, which earned him the fame of “controversial” in the 70s. “The political and controversial Picasso was, on the one hand, a friend of the communists but Moscow was suspicious of him because he did not follow the aesthetic norms of socialist realism, but rather defended the freedom of the artist. So that earned him the praise of the Americans. He was very free and did not adhere to conventions”, he added.
On the other hand, Alberdi, asked about the influence of ‘Guernica’ in Spain, has noticed that the return of the painting to Spain in 1981 was the first great tribute paid to the artist in his country because he was a “myth” of anti-Francoism .
“There are some exhibitions in Barcelona and Madrid in 1981 but the peak moment is just the return of the work, which manages to be placed in the Casón del Buen Retiro and opens to the public on October 25, 1981, when it turned 100 years of his birth. He had been a famous exile in the world but in Spain there had been no tributes,” he said.
In addition, he has pointed out that there is a second interpretation of the importance of ‘Guernica’ for Spain, focused on the political situation of the time. “There is a certain use on the part of the authorities to make it clear, both internally and to the rest of the world, that Spain was in a process of democratization. For this reason, some French and American authorities support this return,” he assessed, before ruling that bringing ‘Guernica’ to Spain “was not a bed of roses”.
