Until September 21, 2025, the Musée national Picasso-Paris is dedicating its main ground-floor gallery to the Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino. This first French retrospective, and above all a meeting of two Mediterranean-influenced artistic visions, explores the question: what can the work of a woman born in Italy and shaped in Brazil reveal when she engages in dialogue with the Spanish master of the Hôtel Salé? The answer emerges through clay, paper, and political inspiration, and awaits you at the very end.
Part of the France-Brazil 2025 Cultural Season, the exhibition brings together around one hundred drawings, sculptures, paintings, and videos spanning sixty years of her work. Awarded a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2024 Venice Biennale, Maiolino is taking advantage of her first Parisian exhibition to assert her place in the history of contemporary art and in Brazilian cultural memory. At the entrance, a large red neon sign proclaims "I am here" in French and Portuguese, a manifesto-like title that underscores the artist's rejection of any patrimonial showcase: she declares herself alive and at work.
As visitors move through the galleries, a central theme emerges: the work of the hand. Engravings from the 1960s, photographs from the 1970s, ten short films depicting the silent cutting of raw bread, and then series of clay sculptures endlessly kneaded like so many daily loaves of bread baked in humble kitchens. This tactile journey illuminates what connects Maiolino to Picasso: the freedom given to the material, the transformation of the mundane into the poetic. The curatorial work by Emilio Khalil, in collaboration with Sébastien Delot and Fernanda Brenner, underscores this dialogue without ever comparing one canvas to another; rather, it allows the shared themes to resonate: exile, the body, motherhood, commitment…
Exiled in New York during the Brazilian military dictatorship, Maiolino made language a gentle weapon. Her Poems The visuals blend Portuguese and Italian words, like migrants intertwining on the page. His performances invite the public to walk barefoot among eggs placed on the fragile ground, a metaphor for survival. In Paris, these works take on a new significance: they engage in a dialogue with Picasso's peaceful struggles against war and for peace. This encounter reminds us that art can be a statement without proclaiming a slogan.
By hosting Maiolino, the museum continues its committed approach: inviting contemporary artists who question Picasso's legacy, following in the footsteps of Faith Ringgold and Sophie Calle. This policy responds to a public desire for a living, dynamic museum. Here, the Brazilian female perspective offers an organic interpretation of Picasso, far removed from masculine stereotypes, opening the door to new, decolonized narratives in European museums.
As Maiolino's voice fills the Hôtel Salé, the initial question finds its answer. Yes: this exhibition reveals that the dialogue between artworks and cultures continues to nourish the present. In the final room, a wall of recent, previously unseen drawings affirms that the artist remains in constant motion. Leaving the museum, one understands that Picasso continues to resonate through the echoes reverberated by creators worldwide. And one carries away this simple certainty: art lives when it is shared, without borders…
"Anna Maria Maiolino. I am here. Estou Aqui"
Picasso-Paris National Museum
5, rue de Thorigny, Paris 3e
Until September 21, 2025
