Wifredo Lam — Centre Georges Pompidou — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 30, 2015 → February 15, 2016

Galerie 2, Level 6

The Centre Pompidou is devoting an in-depth retrospective to the work and career of the painter Wifredo Lam (1902 — 1982), from the 1930s to the 1970s. The exhibition aims to reposition the Cuban artist’s work within an international history of modern art, to which he made a key contribution in both Europe and the Americas.

A wide-ranging exhibition

Through more than 400 works (paintings, drawings, photographs, reviews and rare books), the exhibition offers a completely new overview of the artist’s work in a chronological circuit: Spain, 1923-1938; Paris-Marseille, 1938-1941, Cuba and the Americas, 1941-1952, Paris, Caracas, Havana, Albissola, Zurich, 1952-1961, Paris and Albissola, 1962-1982. The retrospective features an outstanding loan from the MoMA in New York: La Jungle, 1943, one of the artist’s landmark works.

A look back over all the periods of Lam’s singular career

Covering his early years in Cuba, and the time he spent in Spain from 1924-1938 (many works from this period were later found in Madrid), to the dazzling series of engravings in the Sixties and Seventies, the exhibition sheds new light on his major works after his “return to the homeland” (1942 -1952), in the cultural and political context of the period. The exhibition circuit follows the different periods during the course of the artist’ life and work, as he met various intellectuals and poets who profoundly influenced the century.

After the Centre Pompidou, the exhibition will be presented at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, from 12 April to 15 August 2016, then at the Tate Modern, London, from 14 September 2016 to 8 January 2017.

The event is accompanied by a 240-page catalogue published by the Centre Pompidou, edited by the exhibition curator, Catherine David. This features new articles by Kobena Mercer, Mathew Gale and Catherine David, and an anthology including texts by Michel Leiris, Pierre Mabille, Fernando Ortiz, Alain Jouffroy and Lowery Stokes Sims.