Eduardo González
The King and Queen of Spain will preside today at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid the opening ceremony of the commemorative activities of the Picasso Year, in which the Governments of Spain and France will develop a joint program that will include more than forty exhibition projects, two academic congresses and events in different parts of Europe and North America.
The event will be attended by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares; the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta; the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños; and the Minister of Culture of France, Rima Abdul Malak, in addition to the French Ambassador in Madrid, Jean-Michel Casa, and numerous ambassadors from other countries accredited in Spain, as sources from the Ministry of Culture and the French Embassy informed The Diplomat.
April 8, 2023 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the Malaga painter Pablo Picasso in the French town of Mougins. For that reason, the governments of Spain and France agreed, at the XXVI Franco-Spanish Summit in Montauban (March 15, 2021), to create a bilateral Spanish-French Commission in charge of coordinating a wide-ranging program of commemorative activities in Spain, France and other countries.
The Commission is made up of representatives of the Ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs of both countries and counts on the collaboration of more than 30 cultural institutions from Spain, France (especially the Musée National Picasso-Paris), the United States, Germany, Switzerland and Monaco. The Spanish-French Commission met for the first time on February 28, 2022 to initiate the work between the two governments and the general coordination with the cultural institutions involved in the organization of the events linked to this celebration.
Over the coming months, nearly 40 exhibitions and events are planned to be held mainly in Europe and North America. Fifteen exhibitions will be held in Spain, specifically at the Museu Picasso Barcelona, the Museo Picasso Málaga, the Museo Casa Natal Picasso in Málaga, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Museo Nacional del Prado, the Museo de Belas Artes da Coruña, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Museu del Disseny in Barcelona, the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, the Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid, La Casa Encendida in Madrid and the Cine Doré de Filmoteca Española. The program of temporary exhibitions on the painter will start in October and will be held in the last quarter of 2022 and throughout 2023.
In addition, two academic congresses will be organized and an educational and dissemination program will be developed in close collaboration with the administrations of Malaga, A Coruña, Madrid and Barcelona, cities especially linked to the artist’s life.
