MALAGA.- Picasso Reflections is an exhibition programme that has the strategic aim of expanding the presence of the Museo Picasso Málaga in Andalusia, generating new opportunities to reinterpret Picasso's work from contemporary perspectives. Each edition offers a unique encounter that allows visitors to look at Picasso from new perspectives and with new resonances, opening up his work to other genealogies and temporalities.

In this sense, and following the success of Reflections. Picasso x Koons, presented at the Alhambra and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Granada (December 2024 – March 2025), the latest exhibition in the series, Reflections. Picasso x Barceló, now provides an exceptional opportunity in Almería and Cádiz to discover the connections between the Mallorcan artist's work and Picasso's legacy, and also between their works and archaeological items housed in the two museums.

The unique aspect of this exhibition project lies in the fact that it establishes a dialogue between Pablo Picasso and Miquel Barceló through one of the oldest and most universal artistic mediums: ceramics. Works by the two artists are displayed alongside objects from the archaeological collections of the museums in Almería and Cádiz, establishing a trans-historical encounter in which prehistoric, ancient, medieval and contemporary clay modelling practices find common ground. The exhibition also encourages visitors to perceive the constant echo of Picasso in Barceló: an experimental approach, a continuous reinvention based on tradition, and a shared desire for dialogue with ancient and modern art.

THE ART OF FIRE

Since the dawn of humanity, clay and fire have come together to produce ceramics, one of the oldest and most significant of all inventions. With the first pots, humans found a way to conserve water, store grain and cook food: humble objects that transformed daily life and ensured the survival of communities.

In addition, functional pieces soon became bearers of symbols: they were decorated with geometric motifs, animals and scenes from daily life, becoming witnesses to beliefs, rituals and ways of imagining the world. Moulded by hand, clay became a medium of memory. Trade disseminated ceramics along land and sea routes, taking jugs, amphorae and bowls from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. Each object travelled filled with oils, wine or spices but also transported styles, techniques and knowledge that interacted in ports and markets. As a result, ceramics became the art of transforming earth, water and fire into objects that were both functional and transcendent, in constant dialogue with the lives of communities.

Reflections. Picasso x Barceló proposes an interpretation of ceramics as a universal language that connects the functional and the transcendent, the everyday and the symbolic. The exhibition highlights the ongoing presence of clay as a material of memory and experimentation, placing both artists within a Mediterranean genealogy of creators who have transformed earth, water and fire into enduring art over the centuries.

GEOGRAPHIES OF CLAY: VALLAURIS AND MALI

For Picasso, ceramics became an essential laboratory of ideas after World War II. In Vallauris he discovered clay as a ductile medium that allowed him to combine painting, sculpture and objects, transforming plates, jugs and vessels into human bodies, mythological beings and everyday scenes while connecting with the ceramic traditions of Andalusia and the Mediterranean.

Miquel Barceló came to ceramics in the 1990s, during the time he spent in Mali. There he learned ancestral techniques from the Dogon community and turned an accident into a revelation: ceramics became a territory of exploration in which the ritual, the corporeal and the experimental converge. His works bear the marks of the physical process, becoming living surfaces that retain the energy of the moment.

The exhibition, sponsored by Fundación Unicaja, is curated by Miguel López-Remiro, artistic director of the Museo Picasso Málaga; Tania Fábrega, director of the Museo de Almería; and Laura Esparragosa, director of the Museo de Cádiz. Miguel López-Remiro has noted that while for Picasso, “ceramics constitute not only a way of multiplying his message, but also a privileged way of articulating tradition and innovation, memory and modernity", for Barceló, ceramics are "an exploratory territory where the ancestral, the corporeal and the experimental converge." He also considers that "these two cities – Almería on the Mediterranean, Cádiz on the Atlantic, two Andalusian cities open to the sea – are key to understanding the evolution of this artistic medium and thus to generating a play of reflections between past, present and possible futures through Picasso and Barceló."

TWO CITIES WITH HISTORY

Located in the archaeological contexts of Almería and Cádiz, Picasso and Barceló’s works establish a dialogue with Neolithic vessels, Phoenician and Roman amphorae, Islamic ceramics and fragments of thousands of years of history. Thematic resonances emerge that traverse the ages: the human and animal form as archetypes, fire as a transformative force, fragility as resilience, and the processes of fragmentation and recomposition as a testament of time. Then there is also the sea; the shared soul of these two cities which has acted as a conduit of memory, fusion and artistic creation between different civilizations thanks to maritime trade.

Founded in 1933 and reopened in 2006 in a contemporary building, the Museo de Almería houses one of the most important ceramic collections in Spain, with items spanning more than five thousand years, from the Neolithic to modern creations. Its museological discourse, structured around a stratigraphic column, provides an understanding of the cultural evolution of the southeastern Iberian Peninsula through materials from sites such as Los Millares and El Argar.

The Museo de Cádiz, located on the Plaza de Mina since 1935 and declared a Site of Cultural Interest, is fundamental for an understanding of the city's history and art. The collection is structured into three areas: Archaeology, Fine Arts and Ethnography. Highlights include Phoenician sarcophagi, Roman sculptures and Baroque paintings by Zurbarán and Murillo, as well as the unique Tía Norica puppet collection. In its entirety, the museum presents a wide-ranging collection that reflects the cultural identity of Cádiz from antiquity to the present day.

Reflections. Picasso x Barceló is a project conceived and undertaken in collaboration with Miquel Barceló, the Museo Picasso Málaga and the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, with the sponsorship of Fundación Unicaja and the collaboration of the Consejería de Andalucía de Cultura y Deporte.