For Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) graphic art was a medium he could experiment with to his heart’s content. Picasso produced over 2,500 prints in a great variety of techniques. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has nearly four hundred of these prints in its collection, a selection of more than seventy of which will now be shown at the Kunsthal. Some of the highlights in the exhibition ‘Picasso on paper’ include the colour linocut prints depicting still lifes, bull fights, scenes from mythology and especially women. Picasso taught himself the technique of the colour linocut in 1958, when he was already well into his seventies. This exhibition also marks the start of ‘Boijmans Next Door’, a collaboration between a number of Rotterdam museums to keep part of the Boijmans collection visible in the city over the coming years.
‘The Anarchist Citizenship. Ode to Youthful Daredevils’ is a project by the researcher Amal Alhaag (1983) and the socially committed artist Nadine Stijns (1977) about the people of Somaliland. Since 1991, this territory in northwest Somalia has been operating as a self-declared independent state. In ‘The Anarchist Citizenship’, the duo researches how the Somalilanders are giving shape to their citizenship through fashion, architecture, friendship and culture. In collaboration with the depicted women, young people and other locals – often acting as art directors – Stijns and Alhaag manage to capture the unique visual culture of the Somalilanders in their photographs. Shown on silk fabric and plexiglass, the dozens of colourful photographs present an image that is much more nuanced and varied than dominant western views would suggest.