Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds

Project: Exhibition Design

Client: Mississippi Museum of Art

Exhibition on view November 11, 2023–March 3, 2024

Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds was curated by Laurence Madeline and organized by the American Federation of the Arts, with the exceptional support of the Musée national Picasso-Paris. The installation at MMA featured twenty-seven works spanning the entirety of Picasso’s seventy-five-year career, along with historical film clips and photographs. Richly colored walls alluded to nature while grounding the exhibition with a serious tone. The dark colors also served to visually reduce the scale of the galleries, which, along with strategic artwork and archival material placement, offset the small number of artworks in the spacious gallery. Life-sized photographs of the artist gave visitors an indication of Picasso’s age and studio location when he created the paintings nearby. Large projections of historical footage became scenic elements that provided adjacent artwork a sense of place while wall-mounted monitors displayed more intimate films such as home movies and the newscast about his burial. Marking fifty years since the artist’s death, Picasso Landscapes was the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work to be presented in the state of Mississippi.

Entrance to Picasso and Bearden exhibitions. Wall has large MMA logo in orange and titles of each exhibition.
Entry area to Picasso Landscapes exhibition. The title wall is centered, there is a life-sized photograph of Picasso on the left and area on right for picking up gallery guides and learning how to access the museum's app.
A view of the first wall of the exhibition, looking back toward the title wall at far left. The title area wall paint is teal. Three paintings from Picasso's youth are installed on a maroon wall, with a painting of trees in the snow in the foreground on the right.
Archival footage of a landscape is projected on a wall in the center of the gallery. Five paintings are hung on green and maroon walls to the left.
On a green wall, right to left: television plays short archival clip of news broadcast about Picasso's burial, Picasso's final landscape painting, a large photo mural of Picasso's final exhibition with his final landscape displayed at center.
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