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PICASSO

Paris: Picasso museum becoming a ‘fiasco’

The son of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso has hit out at the French government after the culture minister put back the opening of the Picasso museum in Paris until September. Claude Picasso said he was "scandalised" and accused the French government of not caring.

Paris: Picasso museum becoming a 'fiasco'
Claude Picasso, the son of Spanish painter Pablo, is not happy with France's ministry of culture. Photo: Sebastien Bozon/AFP

Five years after it closed for a two-year renovation, Paris's Picasso museum – which houses one of the world's most extensive collections of the Spanish master's work – will finally reopen its doors in September, the culture ministry announced Sunday. It had intially been due to open in June.

The delay has caused controversy, with the painter's son Claude Picasso on Friday accusing the French government of indifference and saying he was "scandalised and very worried" about the future of the museum.

"This opening was supposed to be a great party. They are turning it into a fiasco," he told Le Figaro.

"The truth is that there is positively no desire to open the museum. I am being taken for a ride. I get the impression that France is making a mockery of my father and of me," he said.

Claude Picasso was called to the French prime minister's office on Monday where he was presumably offered an apology and an explanation for the postponement.

He asked the government to do its best to ensure that the establishment reopens in June, as announced earlier this year by the gallery's president Anne Baldassari.

Jean-Francois Bodin, the architect in charge of the renovation, had said on Saturday that the museum could still be reopened at the end of June as scheduled.

Culture Minister Aurelie Filipetti said in a statement that her ministry had decided to reopen the museum to the public in mid-September because the main renovations were only completed on April 30 and time was needed to finish the rest.

She made an appeal "for everyone to overcome personal interests and show enthusiasm and calm to allow the project to be completed".

The final bill for the refurbishment of the 17th-century baroque mansion in Paris's historic Marais quarter now stands at €52 million ($71 million), €22 million higher the original budget due to changes in the scope of the work.

The museum's exhibition space will be more than doubled to 40,000 square feet (3,800 square metres) after the renovation.

Although the musuem has around 5,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, photographs and documents, previously only a fraction could be displayed at any one time due to limited space.

There will also be a corresponding rise in the number of visitors that can be admitted at once from 380 to 650, and annual admission figures are expected to jump from 450,000 to 850,000

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PICASSO

Picasso murals removed from Oslo building damaged by Breivik

Despite protests, the removal of two murals designed by Pablo Picasso began on Monday from an Oslo government building damaged in right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik's 2011 attack, a project manager said.

Picasso murals removed from Oslo building damaged by Breivik
The mural “The Fishermen” by Pablo Picasso and the Norwegian artist Carl Nesja is scaffolded at the Y-block in the government quarter in Oslo on July 27th. Photo: AFP

The “Y Block”, a government building complex named for its shape, is scheduled to be demolished due to damage from explosives that Breivik set before going on a shooting rampage, killing a combined 77 people.

On its grey cement walls are two drawings by Picasso that were sandblasted by Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar, who collaborated with the Spanish master painter.

On the facade facing the street, “The Fishermen” depicts three men hauling their oversized catch onto their boat. In the lobby, “The Seagull” shows the bird, its wings spread wide, devouring a fish.

 

On Monday, the works, weighing 250 and 60 tonnes respectively, were enclosed in massive metal supports to be transported away and stored nearby, according to Statsbygg, the public agency in charge of overseeing the demolition.

“The operation is very slow” and should be completed by Thursday or Friday, site manager Pal Weiby told AFP.

The plan is to integrate the works into a new government building scheduled for completion in 2025.

Opponents of the project, both in Norway and abroad, have been mobilising in recent years to save the building, calling for it to be renovated and preserved as has been planned for its neighbour, “Block H”.

“Block H” was home to the prime minister's offices until Breivik blew up a van loaded with 950 kilogrammes (2,100 pounds) of explosives at its base, before he went on to carry out a mass shooting on the island of Utoya.

In addition to hoping to preserve an architectural work typical of the 1960s, opponents of the destruction invoke a symbolic argument: that the government buildings should remain standing even though the right-wing extremist tried to tear them down.

READ ALSO: New York's MoMA calls for Norway to save Picasso building

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