The Museu Picasso in China, the USA and Japan
The extent of the museum's worldwide presence, above and beyond its policy of international loans, is on the increase. Three new ventures this autumn give added impetus to this process.
The Collections department of the Museu Picasso de Barcelona is represented in China this October at a series of talks organized by the Instituto Cervantes in Beijing and Shanghai. Two talks-‘Picasso's Muses' and ‘Picasso and Barcelona'-are part of the programme of activities entitled ‘Picasso in October' with which the Cultural Centre is paying tribute to the artist on the 35th anniversary of his death. The programme consists of a series of lectures, films, an exhibition of Picasso's ceramics and a show of art by 9 to 12 year-olds from the Dongcheng district of Beijing reflecting their responses to the artist and his work.
The Museu has also been invited to form part of the international Programmme Committee for the 2009 Museums & the Web conference. The Committee includes representatives of some of the world's most prestigious museums, such as the Victoria & Albert in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute and the San Francisco Exploratorium, as well as University delegates from the Panteion University in Athens, the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, and the University of South Australia.
To coincide with this annual conference, of worldwide reference, last April saw the launch of the new Museu Picasso website.
Meanwhile, in Japan, a report on the Museu Picasso de Barcelona is the opening article in the special issue of the magazine Pen (no. 231, 2008) devoted to Pablo Picasso entitled ‘Travelling Picasso'. In an interview with the Japanese magazine the Museu Picasso's director, Pepe Serra, outlines the origin of the museum in the artist's express decision to celebrate his close ties with Barcelona.
Visitors from Asia currently constitute the largest group of visitors to the Museu Picasso de Barcelona.