Five architecture and landscape teams have been selected to compete for the Mus\u00e9e National Picasso\u2011Paris’s project to create the \u201cworld\u2019s leading garden of Picasso sculptures\u201d in 2030. On Friday (11 September), the museum and Paloma Picasso, the artist\u2019s daughter, revealed the shortlisted designers.<\/p>\n
The five teams selected for the international competition are: Antoine Dufour and Wagon Landscaping; Lina Ghotmeh, Pierre-Antoine Gatier and Florence Mercier Paysagiste; NeM Niney et Marca Architectes and Atelier Jacqueline Osty & Associ\u00e9s; Stanton Williams, Atelier PNG, Vogt and Francesca Torzo; and Drubigny Architecte and Sarah Price Landscapes. The winner of the architectural competition will be chosen by an international jury by next January.<\/p>\n
The museum intends to display around ten major Picasso bronzes in a public garden at the rear\u00a0of its 17th\u00a0century\u00a0hotel particulier, in the historical Marais district. The Paris museum, which owns the most important collection of his sculptures, around 350 pieces, also plans to reshape a corridor along the square as an 800 sq. m\u00a0exhibition hall. The museum will also renovate part of the historical house to create spaces for a bookstore and a cafeteria.<\/p>\n
The \u20ac55m project is made possible by a collaboration with the artist\u2019s family, the city of Paris and the Don Quixote Foundation, a philanthropic organisation co-founded by the Dutch aristocrat and venture capital executive Rolly van Rappard, the Mus\u00e9e National Picasso\u2011Paris\u2019s director C\u00e9cile Debray says. The museum has already raised \u20ac40m for the project by casting and selling four bronzes to the Dutch foundation, which will join works by Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, Henry Moore and others in the new Don Quixote Pavilion and Gardens at the Rijksmuseum. Announced last January, the Don Quixote Foundation will donate \u20ac60m to develop the garden and give a large number of sculptures on long-term loan.<\/p>\n
Until now, Picasso’s family had resisted to consent to posthumous casts in bronze, but changed its mind in order to support the project, Paloma Picasso said at a press conference. The four bronzes that have been cast and sold to the Don Quixote Foundation are La ch\u00e8vre\u00a0(the goat, 1952), a life-size statue displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York;\u00a0La guenon et son petit\u00a0(Female baboon and child, 1951); a\u00a0Woman\u2019s head\u00a0and bust\u00a0(1930), from the period that the artist spent in Normandy in the manor of Boisgeloup; and\u00a0Petite fille sautant \u00e0 la corde\u00a0(Little girl jumping rope, 1950), made when the artist was experimenting with ceramics in Vallauris on the French Riviera. <\/p>\n
Many of Picasso\u2019s sculptures are assemblages of found materials that he made with a mix of invention and humour. For the sculpture of the little girl, he used a wicker basket, a cake pan and a pair of children’s shoes; for the baboon\u2019s face, two of his son\u2019s car toys. Glass bottles served for the goat\u2019s udder and a palm leaf for her back, covered with terracotta and plaster. <\/p>\n
The museum has also cast, through the Swiss foundry Saint Gallen, four statues for its own garden, including the two-metre-high\u00a0Femme au jardin\u00a0(Woman at the garden, 1929-30), conceived as an homage to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Recreating the myth of Apollo and Daphne, during the short time when Picasso took inspiration from his Surrealist friends, it is the most important piece that he designed in painted metal, with the help of his friend Julio Gonzalez. Intended for Apollinaire\u2019s tombstone, it was rejected as too modernist and stayed in Boisgeloup.<\/p>\n
Picasso conceived several public monuments. Nevertheless, apart from a small sculpture of a woman\u2019s head in the Saint-Germain-des-Pr\u00e9s square, the city of Paris, where he arrived at the age of 19, does not currently feature any of his statues on public display.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father always wanted his sculptures to be close to the people\u201d, Paloma said, adding that she was \u201cvery happy\u201d to see this consecration of Picasso\u2019s sculpture, \u201cwhich is an important part of the work of such a complete artist and is not truly recognised for its value\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five architecture and landscape teams have been selected to compete for the Mus\u00e9e National Picasso\u2011Paris’s project to create…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,253414,10748,10345,18257,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-767748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-musee-national-picasso","tag-museums","tag-museums-heritage","tag-pablo-picasso","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}