Arthur Cravan. Maintenant?
A nephew of Oscar Wilde's and a legendary figure in the avant-garde trends of the early twentieth century, especially Dada, Arthur Cravan visited Barcelona in 1916. This exhibition is a survey of Cravan's most outstanding artistic works and sporting feats during the years of World War One and the early twenties.
An adventurer, poet and boxer, a 'mystical colossus' with an impressive physical constitution, Fabian Avenarius Lloyd (1887-1918) adopted the pseudonym Arthur Cravan when he arrived in Paris in 1909. He was an enigmatic character, 'a quaint rambler' whose private life merged with his art, and whose birth and death are still as mysterious as his means of support. He became famous thanks to his non-conformist journal Maintenant, on which he worked as director, editor and sole collaborator. His inscrutability, mysterious behaviour and sense of provocation undoubtedly made Cravan one of the key forerunners of the Dadaist movement.
Chronicle of the exhibition
Artworks of the Collection
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
1900
Pablo Picasso
1900
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Arthur Cravan. Maintenant?
The Barcelona of the First World War years was a complex city, fully immersed in various social and political conflicts, and culturally very active, thanks, in part, to the presence of many artists who took refuge there. Within this context of vibrant modernity, an enigmatic and complex character arrived in the city to fight in a boxing match: Arthur Cravan.
The Museu Picasso has wanted to dedicate an exhibition to this controversial figure -poet and writer, dadaist avant la lettre, boxer, lecturer, performer, traveller─ who in 1916 took on the world champion Jack Johnson and managed to disturb the microcosm of Barcelona for a few weeks. His rather unconventional life and his disappearance continues to turn him, even today, into a myth with a lot to discover.
The exhibition, which counts on a large volume of written and graphic documentation, helps us to approach some of these less known aspects of the trajectory of Cravan, and it is, at the same time, an excellent prelude to understanding the cultural environment of a Barcelona that Picasso would visit the following year.
Related activities
Pugilistic conspiracy in Picasso’s home: Arthur Cravan versus Carles Hac Mor
Session of actions. Thursday November 16th, 7pm
«Cravan vs Cravan»: roundtable and projection
Thursday November 30th 2017
«Cravan Constellation: Mina Loy, Olga Sacharoff, Otho Lloyd, Francis Picabia»
Thursday January 11th
