Archiving of a life!
Dominique Bozo had the difficult task of selecting, inventorying, and classifying what would become the Picasso museum collection, with the help of Roland Penrose, Pierre Daix, Maurice Besset, and Jean Leymarie, among others. Picasso painted, drew, sculpted, and wrote. It was essential to capture this range in the dation and then in the museum. The artist's output is a whole that cannot be appreciated in its entirety unless one associates the different elements of which it is composed. Bozo brought out into the light everything that the artist had kept preciously close to himself, allowing for a better understanding of his work and his process. The artist's private archives are rich in iconic pieces from the history of 20th century art. Picasso kept everything, and the successive variations of a work have value as pieces in their own right. The collection bears witness to his method of working, he who loved to explore every possible technique.
Picasso also kept small objects from his everyday life and mementos of his relationships with others: invoices, letters, words, envelopes, tickets to shows, menus from weddings, holiday postcards, lists of friends, invitations and programmes for operas... Many contain notes, scribbles, drawings, and transformations. This mass makes up an exceptional archive that has remained scarcely used until now. This heterogeneous, austere, and secret collection captivates the researcher seeking hidden details, as Arlette Farge writes: "The archive drives you to read on [...] it gives the reader a sense of finally capturing reality–a sense of no longer examining through the account about, the discourse of. That is how the naïve but deep feeling emerges of tearing off a veil, of crossing the opacity of knowledge and, after a long, uncertain journey, reaching the essence of beings and things. […] Without a doubt, the discovery of the archive is a godsend, a gift that fully justifies its name: 'source'."[1] Gathering in one single place the artist's minute traces and works, his creative whispers as well as his references or his choices, provides us with an entirely different viewpoint.
Dominique Bozo was thus entrusted with the delicate responsibility of bringing the material from the studio out into the light. This somewhat controversial art historian changed the landscape of modern and contemporary art in France. It is to his efforts that we owe the transformation of the Musée National d'Art Moderne into one of the most important centers in the world for those striving to understand 20th century art. He loved art; he loved promoting it, teaching it, and making it known; he had an innate sense of public service. Many have criticized his notorious resignations and his secretive nature. He was well aware that no one in the sphere of French museums had as clear a vision as his of the art of the first half of the 20th century, nor his perceptiveness. The success of the Picasso museum is greatly indebted to him. Dominique Boze devoted himself wholeheartedly to bringing the work and the life of the artist out into the light.
[1] Arlette Farge, Le Goût de l’archive, Éditions du Seuil, 1989
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Summary