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'Arlequí i dona amb collaret', de Picasso, és una de les teles presents a la mostra

'Cubism and War: a new exhibition at the Picasso Museum

The exhibition focuses on the survival of the European artistic avant-garde who had settled in Paris during the First World War

Cubism and War. The Crystal in the Flame, a new exhibition, curated by Christopher Green, is scheduled to open at Barcelona’s Picasso Museum on 21 October. It focuses on the survival of the European artistic avant-garde who had settled in Paris during the First World War and, in reaction to the horrors of the conflict, went on to develop an artistic movement that built on cubist aesthetics.

This is the first exhibition in Barcelona to examine the relationship between cubism and the Great War. It features 80 works produced between 1913 and 1919.  Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris and Diego Rivera, three artists who resided in France but due to their situation as foreign nationals took no part in the war, are at the core of the exhibition, though it also features works by Georges Braque and Fernand Léger, who were on the front line, and Blanchard, Severini, Lipchitz, Laurens and Matisse, who, for a range of reasons, managed to avoid being sent to the front. For the organisers, the artists features in this exhibition still has a lot to say: “The evolution of cubism in the Great War -and even more so, of the movement in Paris under the imminent threat of chaos-, towards control, coherence and integrity turned out to be still relevant today, nearly a century later”.  The exhibition features works from a wide selection of works from museums and private collections around Europe and America.

Cubisme and War will be at the Picasso Museum until 29 January 2017.

Publication date: Thursday, 20 October 2016
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