Calder-Picasso

Published to accompany an exhibition at the Musée national Picasso-Paris produced in partnership with the Calder Foundation and Fundacíon Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, Calder, Picasso explores the uses of negative or empty space in the work of Alexander Calder (1898–1976) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), both in their resonances and their differences. With a focus on figurative as well as abstract themes, the exhibition links some 150 artworks by both artists via a thematic lens of void-as-matrix and the corollary proposition that confrontation with the void is a fundamental aspect of 20th-century modernism.

These works are interpreted objectively as well as metaphorically, using the void as a prism through which to analyze the conceptual and formal tensions both artists deploy as a means to place the direct and personal experience of the spectator at the very heart of their work. The catalog maps the tangible traces of a relationship between these two men: their points in common, their encounters, their collaborations and the sometimes extreme confrontation posed in their works through the use of obscure or even illusory perspectives; it includes numerous major texts on these topics by respected specialists.