M+ has revealed details for a groundbreaking exhibition – Picasso for Asia: A Conversation. The exhibition will feature 60+ masterpieces from the late 1890s to the early 1970s by Pablo Picasso alongside works by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists selected from the M+ Collections.
Co-curated by M+ and Musée national Picasso-Paris (MnPP), the exhibition will be co-presented with the French May Arts Festival. This exhibition is a landmark moment, uniting masterpieces from the Musée national Picasso-Paris with artworks from an Asian museum collection for the first time. It highlights Picasso’s enduring influence by juxtaposing his works with contemporary Asian art, demonstrating his ongoing relevance.
Picasso for Asia: A Conversation is co-curated by Doryun Chong, Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator, M+, and François Dareau, Research Fellow, Musée national Picasso-Paris, supported by Hester Chan, Curator, Collections, M+. The exhibition offers a fresh and distinctive lens through which to understand Picasso’s legacy, delving into intricate connections between origin and reception, invention and adaptation, and the Western and non-Western worlds. Featuring over sixty masterpieces loaned from MnPP, the world’s foremost repository of Picasso’s works, alongside approximately eighty pieces from the M+ Collections by over twenty Asian and Asian-diasporic artists spanning from the early twentieth century to the present, it promises a rich dialogue between diverse artistic perspectives.
We are extremely proud to join hands with the Musée national Picasso-Paris to present a major exhibition based on the principle of shared dialogues. By considering Pablo Picasso’s extraordinary work over the period of his life, this exhibition is built around a premise that museums working together can build new ways of seeing. Celebrating the practices of Asian artists by bringing Picasso’s works into this conversation manifests M+’s unique role in creating multilayered dialogues around modern and contemporary art on a global level.
Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+
The exhibition will be the first significant presentation of Picasso’s works in Hong Kong in more than a decade and an unprecedented cross-cultural and intergenerational dialogue between the twentieth-century European master and contemporary Asian artists. Major works on view will include The Acrobat(L’Acrobate) (1930), Figures by the Sea (Figures au bord de la mer)(1931), Large Still Life with Pedestal Table (Grande nature morte au guéridon)(1931), Portrait of Dora Maar (Portrait de Dora Maar) (1937), and Massacre in Korea (Massacre en Corée) (1951) from the permanent collection of Musée national Picasso-Paris. Works by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the M+ Collections, including Luis Chan, Gu Dexin, Madokoro (Akutagawa) Saori, Isamu Noguchi, and Tanaami Keiichi, will be on display together with Picasso’s oeuvre.
Born of an innovative and inclusive partnership with M+ based on a genuine exchange of knowledge, skills, and expertise, Picasso for Asia: A Conversation is a groundbreaking exhibition, proposing a new methodology and a bold narrative. Pablo Picasso may be the most famous artist in the history of modern art, but offering a circular look at his art, examined through the prism of a contemporary Asian perspective that decentres from the Western point of view, is an unprecedented proposal. It is a wonderful way to continue our work of expanding Picasso’s audience and questioning his reception and artistic legacy.
Cécile Debray, President, Musée national Picasso-Paris,
Picasso for Asia: A Conversation asks a series of fundamental questions. Why is Picasso still the world’s most famous artist? Why are publics around the world drawn to and fascinated by his art more than fifty years after his death? What is the source of the enduring influence and legacy of his life and art? The exhibition will answer these questions that have far-reaching ramifications for understanding the history of modern and contemporary art and visual culture on a global scale, which is the core mission of M+.’
Doryun Chong, Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator, M+, and exhibition co-curator,
