Vancouver Convention Centre (East Building)
Opened October 27, 2021 for a limited run
Tickets: $34.99 (single ticket) at imagine-picasso.com
Posted October 28, 2021
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), the quintessential experimenter, would love this show. He would be there – probably in his trademark baggy shorts with a beautiful much younger woman on his arm – revelling in more than 200 of his paintings projected room-size over the six, huge, origami-inspired surfaces as well as the floors and walls of Vancouver Convention Centre’s East Building. If you experienced Imagine Van Gogh, you have an idea of what to look forward to; if you didn’t see it, prepare to be dazzled.
Before being dazzled you will read your way through half a dozen boards of biographical background. There are two separate rows of these display boards and there is a limit on the number of viewers (all double-vaccinated and masked) so there’s no feeling of being rushed or at risk. In the next room, one entire wall shows all the featured paintings and more information display boards explaining the many styles in which Picasso worked. It’s an art history lesson on the great Spanish master complete in one room.
Astonishing, indeed, is to see all in one place, all at one time, the tremendous variety of Picasso’s creative output: black and white line drawings, realism, cubism, neo-impressionism, surrealism and many of the other isms. The Blue Period. The Rose Period. And he was so prolific: from Wikipedia: “At his death there were more than 45,000 unsold works in his estate, comprising 1,885 paintings, 1,228 sculptures, 3,222 ceramics, 7,089 drawings, 150 sketchbooks, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs.” During the German occupation of Paris during WWII, Picasso also wrote some 300 poems. The Nazi’s, apparently, didn’t approve of his paintings – all that eroticism, all that freedom on display – so he turned to poetry.
At 92, he was still working.
As with Imagine Van Gogh, this exhibition is brought to Vancouver by Tandem Expositions/Paquin Entertainment, in partnership with France-based Encore Productions. Annabelle Mauger and Julien Baron created the show in collaboration with art historian Androula Michael and one of the leading figures of the new French architecture movement, Rudy Ricciotti, who was inspired by the paper structures Picasso made for his children. The team also includes Androula Michael, curator, who is an art historian and Picasso expert.
Opening in Lyon, France in 2019, Imagine Picasso made its North American premiere in Quebec in June 2021 before moving to Vancouver.
Imagine Picasso illustrates a relatively small but rigorously selected cross-section of the paintings and sketches of Picasso, a confident artist, a lover of life, of women and, in paintings like Guernica, his hatred of oppression and war. The brush strokes – projected larger-than-life – are strong, bold and assured. The experience of being amidst these creations, moving among them, is awe-inspiring especially with the music (by Picasso’s contemporaries Satie, Ravel and others) enhancing the projections as they come and go. Diminished by the sheer size of the projections, you are startled, impressed and, above all, grateful for Picasso’s genius.
Constantly re-inventing himself over his 78 year career, Picasso would be blown away by this immersive experience. One can only imagine what he would have done with all the technology available today. A fervent defender of freedom of expression, Picasso would, no doubt, applaud what the team of Mauger, Baron and Ricciotti have made with his artistic output – and then he would have pushed the current technology to unimaginable new heights!
At the risk of starting a stampede, Imagine Picasso is a fantastic location for photos which are not only allowed but encouraged. As my guest pointed out, if you wear white and place yourself in front of the projection, you appear to ‘wear’ Picasso. Move over Yves St. Laurent. Take a hike Versace. Pablo Picasso is in the room.