Picasso in Palestine

Picasso in Palestine is the artist project of artistic director of the International Academy of Art Palestine (IAAP) that aims to - for the very first time - exhibit a masterpiece by Pablo Picasso in Palestine. The Picasso, Buste de Femme, is an iconic piece from the Dutch van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. After two years of preparation, the masterpiece travelled to Palestine in June 2011 where it was exhibited in a specially constructed white cube inside the IAAP.

The travel of the piece, which was selected by the students of the IAAP, revealed the complexity of the legal, artistic and physical structure of the modern art world and the political situation of Palestine. By physically transgressing boundaries the Picasso in Palestine project not only imagines a different world, but makes it possible.

Younes Bouadi was invited to research the project departing from his academic background as art historian and cultural theorist. He has published and taught extensively on the implications of this project. The exhibition seminar that accompanied the exhibition of Picasso in Ramallah, The Picasso Talks, was opened by a lecture of Younes Bouadi.