Equipo Crónica, La visita, 1969

“I do not seek. I find.” Picasso’s famous statement, sometimes seen as arrogant, in fact could not be more on-target an elucidation of the work of an artist in continuous metamorphosis. Never knowing what direction he wanted to go, the Málaga-born master simply always arrived, and so it is that there is not one Picasso, but many. This makes it extremely difficult to weigh up his vast legacy now that fifty years have passed since he died in a small town in the Côte d’Azur. Who is it that we should be commemorating? The prodigious inventor of Cubism or the author of Guernica, symbol of culture in Spain and of an entire era in Europe? The exquisite etcher of the Suite Vollard, with its minotaurs and virgins, or the Duchamp imitator who made bull heads out of bicycle seats and handlebars? The empathic painter supposedly committed to social change or the cruel philanderer? There are so many Picassos and also so many who sought to be like him, from Cocteau to Brancusi, Le Corbusier to Steinberg, Giacometti to Botero. This year’s celebrations should therefore not only recall his powerful, inevitable influence on contemporary culture, but also prompt a critical and social revision of his figure and person.