From a hurried glance at the exhibition title and web page, I mistakenly assumed this was an exhibition about Picasso’s involvement in the theatre i.e. a detailed look at the succession of plays and ballets he did set or costume design for. This turns out to be completely wrong. There is one, relatively small, display case about his theatre, ballet (and film) work, but it’s a relatively small part of this exhibition. No, to explain it, we have to start from a different position.
2025 marked the centenary of the painting of one of Tate’s strongest Picasso possessions, The Three Dancers. Instead of doing the usual chronological overview of his career, Tate invited a couple of guest curators, contemporary artist Wu Tsang and author and curator Enrique Fuenteblanca, to review the entirety of Tate’s Picasso collection and come up with a new and inventive way of presenting it.
The Three Dancers by Pablo Picasso (1925) Tate
Performance
So, after some research and thought, the two guest curators came up with the idea that Performance was a central aspect of Picasso’s work and persona. Many of his works depict performances, not only onstage, but in the many paintings and drawings he did of bullfights, circus performers, acrobats and so on.
Portraits You can consider portraiture as a sort of performance, by both artist and sitter, in which both are playing a part. What else does the sitter do but pose? And so the exhibition contains a dozen or so portraits in different styles. What is being scripted, dramatised and performed in this picture?
Nude woman in a red armchair by Pablo Picasso (1932) Tate
Studio as theatre In which case, the studio is a kind of theatre in which the artistic performance takes place – so there are photos of his studio, paintings of the studio, and a particularly poignant late painting of an empty studio made in tribute to his friend and rival Henri Matisse a year after his death.
The Studio by Pablo Picasso (1955) Tate
Performing for the camera Picasso was always shrewdly aware of his image and loved performing for the cameras – so we have a short film of him dressed up as Carmen! photos of him posing on the beach wearing a fake bull’s head, and even a sound recording of him reading his own poems (all dwarfed by him performing in the documentary about him, see below).
Picasso wearing a bull’s head used for the training of bullfighters in La Californie, Cannes (1959) Courtesy Gagosian Photograph by Gjon Mili/Time and Life, in ‘Picasso Theatre’ at Tate Modern
Ballet and theatre And, as mentioned above, he was involved in costume and set design for a number of plays, operas and ballets so there are several display cases showing photos, designs and programs connected to productions of, for example Pulcinella, Parade, Mercure. He even wrote directed his own play, ‘Desire Caught by the Tail’, in 1941.
So as you can see, the exhibition takes Performance in the broadest sense as being the central thread or theme of Picasso’s life and art and then works through its implications.
Staged
First among these is the fact that the exhibition itself is conceived as a show and a sort of performance.
Behind the scenes This approach explains why 1) the first thing you see (before you get into the dark room) is a metal fence with random works tied to it and then 2) the passageway you walk along to get into the dark room is designed to look like the back of a stage set i.e. rude, unfinished wooden slatting supporting the fancy audience-facing facade on the other side. We are behind the scenes in a theatre, about to walk into the darkened performance area.
A gallimaufrey of Picasso works grouped together under the theme of Transgression (brothels and naked women) at ‘Theatre Picasso’ at Tate Modern (photo by the author)
Darkened space Normal exhibitions are divided into distinct whitewalled rooms. By contrast this one is a) set in a darkened space with black walls, and b) amounts to one main central space with temporary partition walls scattered about to support the works. It feels far more open, loose and walk-aroundable than most formal exhibitions.
Installation view of ‘Theatre Picasso’ at Tate Modern showing the black walls, darkened layout, mixed display (on the immediate left are the display cases showing photos and programmes from theatre and ballet productions he did. On the right is the ramp down to the audience viewing area, explained below (photo by the author)
A performance space This perspective explains another massive design aspect of this exhibition which is that the main space, the main display area for paintings, drawings, sculptures, photos and so on, is raised and framed by curtains as if it was itself a theatre, and the second space visitors walk into is on a lower level with a bench for you to sit and look through a prosceniun arch fringed by curtains at all the other visitors as if they’re on a stage. Yes, the curators have turned their own exhibition into a performance.
Visitors watching other visitors ‘onstage’ ie through a curtain-edged proscenium arch, in ‘Picasso Theatre’ at Tate Modern (photo by the author)
And here’s a view of the viewing room (which itself contains three fairly large works, notably The Painter and His Model (1926) on the right. Note the girl sitting on the floor drawing the scene; arguably she’s the one with the right idea: don’t watch, do).
Reverse view of visitors watching other visitors ‘onstage’ ie through a curtain-edged proscenium arch, incidentally showing a couple more late-period works, in ‘Picasso Theatre’ at Tate Modern (photo by the author) You can see how excited they are by the whole thing
The Mystery of Picasso
And finally, by far the most dominant feature of the whole show is a massive cinema screen onto which is projected in its entirety a 1956 French documentary film titled ‘The Mystery of Picasso’, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, which shows Picasso at work creating some 20 drawings. This is a huge installation, it is dynamic, it has lots of movement and colour, and it has a soundtrack by the avant-garde composer Georges Auric which is also very loud, varied and dramatic.
The size, the colour, the movement and the loud music totally dominate the entire space. So much so that the curators have installed tiered rows of benches for people to settle down on and watch the entire thing which runs to 75 minutes! On a rainy Sunday morning I settled down leaned back and watched the entire film, savouring the way the great man starts by creating simple marker drawings in black and white before progressing to full-scale collages and oil paintings.
The entire film is available to watch online. This appears to be the most complete version if not the best picture quality.
Comment on the film
One thing which comes over really, really, really strongly from the film is that, without exception, he overdoes it. All of the images start with a few simple lines and then he adds in more details and shading so that you magically see the image coming to life before your eyes. However, in almost all cases it reaches a kind of perfection of lightness and deftness but he doesn’t stop. He keeps on adding heavier and heavier washes of colour and ink, obliterating the airy lightness of the original under swamps of murky blues and thick black lines, until they feel utterly ruined.
Mixing it up
One last point. Having done all this, the curators take one more step which is not to present the 50 or so other works (paintings, drawings, fabric, sculpture, collage, cartoons, photos, set designs, theatre programs and so on) in boring chronological order. No, no, they take their inspiration from the first retrospective of his work which Picasso himself supervised, in 1932, where he went out of his way to mix it up, to place works from completely different periods and styles side by side. And so that’s what the curators do here, pairing up works from completely different periods by virtue of their theme or the aspect of performance which they demonstrate.
A nice mix of Picasso works from across his periods and styles in ‘Theatre Picasso’ at Tate Modern (photo by the author)
Thoughts
I’m not sure whether I like Picasso. I can appreciate that he was a genius who revolutionised art etc but that doesn’t mean I particularly warm to any of his individual works. He’s certainly not my favourite modern artist, I like scores of 20th century artists more than him, Paul Klee, Kandinsky, Schiele, Wyndham Lewis, Epstein, Nevinson, Spencer, Pollock, Riley, Saville, loads.
I like the lightness of some of his works, like the woman in a red armchair. But I actively dislike the pre-cubist portraits and I find the cubist stuff deadly dull – bottles of wine and fragments of Figaro, seen a couple and you’ve seen thousands. I can appreciate that the 1920s tubular women running along beaches is an achieved style, and I suppose I ought to admire the 1930s weeping women biting their fingernails etc. And ought to be moved by Guernica et al. The first time you see one of his dove sketches you think Wow, but after you’ve seen 20 or 30 the effect wears off.
I’m ranging over his different styles like this because that’s what this exhibition does, showcasing good examples of each of Picasso’s styles and periods, as well as demonstrating his range of materials or formats, such as painting, drawing, etching, woodcut, lithograph, print, fabric, sculpture and the aforementioned set and costume designs. It’s a very varied and impressive selection, and I could see that much of it is very good, but none of it touched me.
When I was a student I liked the Minotaur prints, in fact a girlfriend bought me a book of them I liked them so much, but I’ve gone off them too. They feel too fussy and too amateurish. Silly poses, cartoon faces, monotonous subject matter.
In fact wandering round the show I realised I’ve slowly gone off Picasso’s entire masculine ethos, the obsession with bulls and bullfighting and bullheaded men has come to seem steadily more ridiculous to me. Living in a culture where gay and lesbian and gender fluid ideas have become more prevalent, most of Picasso’s masculinist posing now seems not just dated but ludicrous. As you wander round this striking and ambitious exhibition, dominated by the big loud central film, you can’t help thinking: what a lot of naked women; what a lot of bulls.
Related links
- Theatre Picasso continues at Tate Modern until 12 April 2026
- Exhibition guide
Related reviews
Picasso
- Picasso and Modern British Art @ Tate Britain (July 2012)
- In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and Modernism in Paris 1900-1910 by Sue Roe (2014)
- Picasso’s Portraits @ the National Portrait Gallery (January 2017)
- Picasso Museum @ Barcelona (July 2017)
- Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy @ Tate Modern (August 2018)
Books & Boots 