PARIS.- To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Pablo Picasso's passing, the Centre Pompidou is organising "Picasso. Dessiner à l'infini" (Picasso. Endlessly Drawing) in collaboration with the musée national Picasso-Paris. The exhibition highlights the most prolific part of his creation by bringing together nearly a thousand works: notebooks, drawings and engravings, most of which come from the collection of the musée national Picasso-Paris. From his youthful studies to his final works, for Picasso, drawing was a constantly renewed place of invention around the power of the stroke, ranging from serpentine lines to hatched drawings and proliferating compositions, from the delicate nuances of pastels to the deep blacks of ink.

This journey through the graphic work, a sort of compulsively kept private diary, the notebooks being the most precious examples, immerses us in the heart of the artist’s work. The exhibition showcases the extraordinary collection of the musée national Picasso-Paris, coming from the artist's studios and preserved by him until his death. The non-linear visit overturns the strict chronological order, enabling resonances to be established between different periods and contrasting well-known masterpieces with drawings presented for the first time.

"Picasso. Dessiner à l'infini" is the greatest retrospective ever organised of the artist's drawings and engravings, plunging visitors into the maelstrom of Picasso's creative processes.

A word from the exhibition curators

Anne Lemonnier et Johan Popelard

Is it still possible to "discover" Picasso? What is original about this exhibition in the Centre Pompidou?

The exhibition in the Centre Pompidou presents nearly 1,000 drawings and engravings! In very varied dimensions, in all styles and using all possible techniques, they enable us to explore Picasso’s graphic profusion. The scenography of the exhibition confirms this idea of profusion by plunging visitors physically into Picasso’s creative vortex. Rather than a classic layout reviewing different periods, the exhibition presents an open progression in which themes follow on from each other like so many questions asked about representation, the line, the role of drawing in the artist’s work. Drawing as a permanent experience, in his notebooks, series and variations; drawing venturing to the frontier of sculpture and painting; drawing as an extension of thought…

How has the contemporary debate about Picasso the man influenced the construction of the exhibition?

We are witnessing a polarisation of this debate : on the one hand, the advocates of a rereading of the history of art in the light of current issues – gender equality, calling out violence, deconstructing phenomena of control. On the other, those who reassert that museums are places of free expression – where aesthetic research outweighs all moral considerations, where censorship is banned, where art is presented for consideration rather than artists… At the heart of the dispute, Picasso is seen as both a target and an emblem. First of all because artist did not leave his entourage unscathed and because he is the most famous artist of the 20th century ; but also because his work thrived on violence – whether private or political. The debate is far from over, and so much the better if it enables us to question our way of looking at works of art – with its limits and its blind spots, but each period has its own.

The "Picasso. Endlessly Drawing" exhibition therefore opts to show the works in all their variety and complexity without masking the questions they raise but also without approaching them from the purely biographical point of view that dominates today. The exhibition thus presents neither "genius" nor "muses" – so many concepts that constitute a biased and obsolete frame of reference in the light of contemporary societal debates.