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.