Francis Picabia. Aprire le porte della notte

The literature on Francis Picabia (1879-1953) is still surprisingly limited compared to his fame and that of his contemporaries, and rarely goes beyond what has already been said by critics. A complex and often controversial figure, Picabia remains an artist about whom much has yet to be discovered.

Famous for having said that “in order to have clean ideas, you must change them like shirts”, he navigated Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstraction, and ultimately post-war Art Informel. His constant resistance to belonging to a single movement allowed him to freely combine techniques, languages, and themes, resulting in a body of work so diverse and heterogeneous that it seems to be the creation of several different artists.

The monograph accompanying the exhibition curated by Anne Berest, writer and great-granddaughter of the artist, presents over 150 works from major public and private collections worldwide. Divided into ten sections, each inspired by the theme of the night as a metaphor for life, the volume comprehensively traces Picabia’s career and eclectic style, offering a journey into his life—particularly his nights, because, as Berest points out, “Picabia lived by day and by night, to live twice as much as others.”

Through critical essays, archival materials, iconographic documents, and thematic in-depth studies, the volume invites the reader to immerse themselves in Picabia’s intimate, enigmatic, and surprising world, restoring the complexity of an author who continuously reinvented himself.