Picasso and eroticism: a scandalous exhibition?

By Dominique DUPUIS-LABBÉ
Head of acquisitions, restoration, conservation and research, general director of cultural heritage in the collections division, the French museum board

Illustrated artwork: Pablo Picasso : Le baiser, 1925 © Musée Picasso
  
Eroticism runs through Picasso’s work in which artistic creation and sexual instinct often interconnect. In his own words: ‘Art is never chaste, and should be forbidden to ignorant innocents, closed to those who are insufficiently prepared for it. Yes, art is dangerous. In other words, if it’s chaste, it’s not art.’ 1
From the series of drawings devoted to brothels dating from 1899 and 1900, to the sepulchral embraces of the 1970s, Picasso never stopped exploring the sexual tension between men and women, playing with the boundary between eroticism and pornography and experimenting with representations of the body.
Dominique Dupuis-Labbé will explore the subject through Picasso’s key works, drawing from the creation of the emblematic exhibition Picasso érotique, presented at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, in 2001.
  
1 Picasso quoted by Antonina Vallentin, Picasso, Paris, Albin Michel, 1957, p.273

Language: FR

In partnership with: Juliette & Victor

Avec le soutien du Service culturel de l’Ambassade de France en Belgique

Part I: La construction de l'exposition

  


Part II: L'Erotisme dans l'oeuvre de Picasso
.