Ubu Painter. Alfred Jarry and the Arts
By Charlotte Stace
The exhibition Ubu Painter. Alfred Jarry and the Arts at Museu Picasso explores the far-reaching influence of French writer Alfred Jarry’s most infamous creation, Ubu Roi - a grotesque, comic tyrant who shocked the world when first staged in 1896. Although Jarry was primarily a writer, he also made drawings, woodcuts and oil paintings, and was deeply embedded in an artistic community that included Gauguin, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec and other Nabis.
The show traces how Ubu’s legacy spread into Surrealism and beyond: it brings together works by Max Ernst, Picasso, Joan Miró, Breton, Artaud and many others, highlighting how the “pataphysical” ideas Jarry developed resonated with 20th-century avant-garde movements. It also covers the founding of the Collège de Pataphysique - an artistic-intellectual group that included Jean Dubuffet, Asger Jorn, Robert Wilson, William Kentridge, and more. It finishes by looking at how Ubu Roi was received in Catalunya, including early local stagings and theatrical interpretations.