Morandi and Picasso Still Lifes at Six-Room Exhibition

An exhibition across six rooms explores the still life genre through works by Giorgio Morandi and Pablo Picasso, with a focus on metaphysical painting, cubism, vanities, and contemporary experiments. Room 1, 'Grammaire d’objets,' highlights Morandi's early interest in still life and his fusion of classical objects with modern plastic treatment, exemplified by 'Natura morta con otre' which aligns with metaphysical painting. Room 2, 'Cubisme,' presents Picasso's poetic dimension, noting his closeness to Guillaume Apollinaire and the double title 'Guitare. J’aime Eva' as an allusion to his companion Eva. Room 3, 'Vanités,' features contemporary vanitas works, including a 2021 piece by Parmiggiani that uses smoke and soot to create a memento mori emphasizing disappearance and void. Room 4, 'Un genre anti-albertien,' quotes art historian Norman Bryson on still life rejecting the window-on-the-world ideal, with Parmiggiani's smoke technique eliminating the motif entirely. Room 5, 'Présence / Effacement,' juxtaposes Morandi's and Picasso's still lifes, noting the strangeness of perspective in a seemingly classic composition of a white pitcher, plate, and apples. Room 6, 'Delocazione,' cites Cesare Brandi on Morandi's dislocating forms, culminating in an etching that retains only the ghost of vases like a negative. The exhibition runs from May 6, 2026, as reported by Isabelle Manca in lejournaldesarts.fr.