Enjoy a guided visit of the PICASSO PRIMITIF exhibition at the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac by the Press Department.

Curator: Yves Le Fur, Director of the Heritage and Collections Department at the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac

What were Picasso’s links with non-Western arts? This question, although frequently adressed, was avoided by the artist himself for a long time.

This exhibition proposes, through two complementary approaches, to present his relationship with the arts of Africa, Oceania, the Americas and Asia. The first approach presents the main points of contact between Picasso and the so-called “primitive” arts with a chronological look at the formation of his private collection and at what interested him and aroused his curiosity.

The second approach creates a dialogue between the works of Picasso and those of non-Western artists, a dialogue that Picasso maintained with the works in his own collection throughout his life. Presented in three parts (Archetypes, Metamorphoses and the Id), this interconnection highlights the artists’ research into shared preoccupations relating to the representation of reality, and in particular, of the human body. Simplification, metamorphosis, mise en abyme, transformation, destruction, etc. – there are many variations of the figure, used arbitrarily by Picasso and by non-Western artists in their artworks, which find a resonance with one another that reveals the impulses and fears behind their creation.