Paul Smith on art directing Pablo Picasso
Art directed by Paul Smith, ‘Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!’ at Paris’ Musée Picasso is a contemporary reframing of Picasso’s collection 50 years after his death. Deyan Sudjic speaks to Smith about his vision for the show
![Cécile Debray, curator and president of the Musée National Picasso - Paris, and Sir Paul Smith, guest artistic director](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/VXzwZya5BuH5z6LGGkrobV-415-80.jpg)
Paul Smith spent some of his best days during the grimmest periods of the Covid lockdown in his famously untidy office in an otherwise empty building, working his way through 200,000 images from Pablo Picasso’s personal collection in the archives of Musée Picasso in Paris. He had been asked to art direct the museum’s exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death, in 1973. ‘The brief was a carte blanche to show Picasso in a new light,’ says Smith. ‘It was meant to be a way to open the museum to a new generation and a new public. Not being an expert, on Picasso, I could say, “I really like that”, without being burdened by all its history.’ Cécile Debray, who took over as the museum’s director only after Smith had started work, is using the exhibition to put the collection, mostly in storage since 2015, back on permanent show.
With an unerring eye for picking out the unexpected, as well as the beautiful, Smith found decorated plates, copies of Vogue that Picasso had scrawled over, Robert Doisneau’s photographs of the master from the 1950s, posters and preparatory sketches, as well as a selection of unquestionable masterpieces. There were, he says, a few surprises about the size and scale of some of his selections when he saw them in the flesh. Working with the museum’s curators to underpin the selection with a broadly chronological structure, and scholarly authority, Smith’s witty and inventive ideas about display create a memorable exhibition, one which he has clearly enjoyed putting together enormously.
Installation view of 'Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!' at Musée Picasso, art directed by Paul Smith
Installation view of 'Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!' at Musée Picasso, art directed by Paul Smith
A wall of bicycle handlebars gazes back at Picasso’s bull’s head fabricated from a bicycle saddle and a rusty steel tube. There is a cascade of striped Breton jerseys hanging from the ceiling of the museum’s attic above a photograph of the artist wearing one.
Picasso’s tribute to Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe has a green lawn on the floor. Thelonius Monk’s improvisational jazz haunts the 1950s room. There are carpets on the floor in some rooms and rough paint stripes on the walls of another. The 17th-century baroque splendour of the museum’s home, the Hôtel Salé, with its honey-coloured stone, has never looked better.
Debray is enthusiastic about the colours that Smith has used. ‘It gives the museum the feeling of being a private house again. We will try and keep that flavour for the future. A white cube can seem so intimidating.’
Installation view of 'Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!' at Musée Picasso, art directed by Paul Smith
Does the most famous artist of the 20th century really need an introduction to a new generation? Debray, on the basis of her reading of Twitter, thinks that he certainly does. She doesn’t use the word misogyny but she does mention Me Too. ‘When I look at social media, I feel a sort of rejection for him from a generation’. It’s the reason she has introduced the work of living artists into the exhibition, most of them women, to contextualise and respond to Picasso’s work. There are some telling juxtapositions, Dora Maar’s surrealistic photograph introduces the war room. Mickalene Thomas, who quotes Guernica in her Black Lives Matter work is on the opposite wall. Louise Bourgeois shares another room with Picasso’s biomorphic work. Obi Okigbo's painting addresses fetish objects from Picasso’s collection.
What did Smith learn about Picasso from the experience? ‘I would never compare myself, but he was always curious, always wanting to learn’.
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
'Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!', on view at the Musée Picasso in Paris until 27 August 2023. museepicassoparis.fr; paulsmith.com
Installation view of 'Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!' at Musée Picasso, art directed by Paul Smith
Installation view of 'Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!' at Musée Picasso, art directed by Paul Smith
Installation view of 'Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!' at Musée Picasso, art directed by Paul Smith
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Picasso’s ‘girl with the ponytail’ says ‘being his own living muse is a blessing’
Sylvette David (now Lydia Corbett) tells us what it was like to work with Picasso, and how it inspired her own art, currently on show at Kunsthalle Messmer, Germany
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew explores the distortion of memory in ‘A Sphinx Looking for a Poet’
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew displays her spectral imagery in an exhibition at Dover Street Market, Paris
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Mark Rothko retrospective to open at Fondation Louis Vuitton in October 2023
The major Mark Rothko exhibition will bring 115 works to Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol’s fruitful partnership explored in Paris
Fondation Louis Vuitton presents ‘Basquiat x Warhol. Painting 4 Hands’, exploring the collaboration between the two artists
By Hannah Silver Last updated