The Diplomat
The King and Queen yesterday presided over the opening ceremony of the Picasso Year (1973-2023), which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the death of the painter from Malaga and in which Spain and France will develop a joint program that will feature more than forty exhibitions, two academic congresses and numerous events to be held mainly in Europe and North America.
“Picasso is not only the painter, of course of this iconic and universal work, he is also the exceptional draftsman, the hidden poet, the writer, the sculptor, the ceramist, the set designer, a complete artist, a tireless, active and creative worker until his death,” said Philip VI during his speech. “All these Picassos, the well-known and those who are not so well known, will have a place in this celebration, which is, above all, that of Culture as a common and shared heritage, as inspiration, as a source of life,” he added. King Philip and Queen Letizia are the Honorary Residents of the National Commission for the Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso.
The event was 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, as well as the French Ambassador in Madrid, Jean-Michel Casa, and numerous ambassadors from other countries accredited in Spain.
For his part, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, declared that Picasso’s best-known work, Guernica, “transcends its time, symbolizing the defense of Human Rights”. “It is a political painting that sheds as much truth on our past as a photograph of that horror, but also appeals to the wars of the present. That is its greatness,” he added.
At the same event, Miquel Iceta assured that during the Year of Picasso celebrations, controversial issues will not be avoided, including the artist’s complicated relationship with women. “Picasso is a person daughter of his time and with all the contradictions: of passionate character, he loved passion and tried to control it. All that is going to be in this year,” she explained. Likewise, the French Minister of Culture affirmed that “Picasso’s work continues to exert a real fascination all over the world, abundant, inventive and often radical, for its artistic force, of course, but also for its political force”. For his part, Bernard Ruiz Picasso, the artist’s grandson, expressed his gratitude to Spain and France and recalled how King Juan Carlos presided over the return of Guernica to our country.
April 8, 2023 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the painter from Malaga in the French town of Mougins. For this reason, the Governments of Spain and France, through a bilateral Spanish-French Commission, have designed a wide-ranging program of commemorative activities that will include temporary exhibitions and academic congresses from the last quarter of 2022 and throughout 2023.
