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where the Picasso Primitif show is installed, is enough to make a visitor realize that there is still much to be explored about the circumstances surrounding Picasso’s encounters with African and Oceanic art, both of which were major infl uences for him throughout his life, as well as about the specifi c nature of the relationship between the artist and these works by other anonymous geniuses that resonated so well with his own creative process. In this sense, the exhibition’s approach is both simple and innovative: It is not about proving that Picasso was inspired by these arts but rather about going beyond the eternal “primitivist analysis” to explore the essence of the artist’s creative act. That act’s primordial dimension is what the word “primitive” in the exhibition’s title refers to. 79 and innovative to bring anything new to what is already known about it. The challenge was even more signifi cant given that the connections between Picasso and tribal art—denied as much as they are affi rmed—might at this point be perceived as a closed subject, inasmuch as they have been thoroughly discussed and explored in a large number of publications in recent decades ranging from La Tête d’obsidienne by André Malraux (1974, Éditions Gallimard) to Picasso l’Africain by Pierre Daix (1998, Éditions Musée Barbier-Mueller, Geneva), as well as in many major exhibitions, including the emblematic Primitivism in 20th Century Art show at MoMA in New York in 1984, to name just one. Nonetheless, just one minute spent in the Galerie Jardin, FIG. 2 (facing page, bottom): Installation view of Picasso Primitif. Part 1: “Chronology” 1900–1974. © Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac. Photo: Gautier Deblonde. FIG. 3 (above): Pablo Picasso in his villa, La Californie, with top model Bettina Graziani. Photographed in 1955 for LIFE magazine. © Mark Shaw/mptvimages.com.


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