The Pompidou Center proposes to open your eyes to discover the collection to celebrate its ten years in Malaga.

Just three months ago, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Málaga renewed their museum partnership under the cube at Muelle Uno for another ten more years, while also inaugurating a major exhibition dedicated to Kandinsky. Now, it's the turn of the semi-permanent collection which, as every year and a half, has been completely renewed with masterpieces from the French National Museum of Modern Art by major authors such as Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramovic, and Marcel Duchamp, but also with iconic and provocative pieces including a small can labeled with the resounding title 'Merda d'artista' ('Artist's Shit', 1961). A suggestive and irreverent proposal by Piero Manzoni that pokes the eye of the viewer, which is what this new collection titled 'To Open Eyes' aims to achieve. To celebrate this renewal, admission will be free this Thursday, as well as the weekend (Saturday and Sunday).

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The supposed preserved excrements of the Italian are at the beginning of the exhibition route almost as a statement of intent. However, the spirit of this sixth semi-permanent collection arriving from Paris to Málaga is actually inspired by the German-American artist and teacher Josef Albers who assured his students that the purpose of art was "to learn to see." Under this secular advocacy, the Centre Pompidou aims for us to open our eyes with a journey marked by the artists, their perspectives, and their ways of deciphering life ranging from the teachings of the oldest, the Swiss-German Paul Klee, to the metallic sculptures of the youngest, the French Caroline Mesquita. Over a hundred years of art history and present between them.

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"Almost a century later, Albers' phrase has not lost its validity; art can teach us to see the world in a different way, which indeed has become too complex," said Valentina Miomas this Thursday, who curated 'To Open Eyes' "with four hands" alongside Anne-Charlotte Michaut with the ambitious goal of viewing reality through the window of paintings, screens, sculptures, or installations. In this last group, the gigantic 'Lingering nous' ('Remaining in us'), in which the Korean Haugue Yang uses dozens of colored Venetian blinds arranged like a fan under a cold, supermarket fluorescent light. Everyday elements disguised as art.

Duchamp's Shovel

This selection of works "activates the viewer's gaze and perspective, which is why we have let the works speak for themselves," explained Michaut about a semi-permanent collection that will be displayed until January 31, 2027, and is structured into six blocks. The start of the route, 'Icons/Signs', is marked by abstract or conceptual art as a renewer of the very idea of art and here we find from a work by Albers himself, great guru of this renewed collection, to the symbolic shovel of Marcel Duchamp who simply bought the object and put his name on it, or the mentioned 'Artist's Shit' that questions the art world and leads to parody if everything a creator produces is of quality.

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In 'Bodies/Colors', the curators question the usual representation of women by giving voice to the work of Judy Chicago and Friederike Pezold, while in 'Gestures/Traces' the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock or the scenic and provocative look of Marina Abramovic's video performances stand out. The piece that serves as the poster for the new collection, 'Cape Count', by Caroline Achaintre, is found in 'Spiritualities/Syncretisms' to remind us that we have to open our eyes with a textile work that recalls a Mexican mask, while the comings and goings of architecture and art feature in 'Fictions/Projections', where the futuristic aesthetics of Olivier Mourgue, the 'space art' of Kiki Kogelnik, and the sculptures of the youngest in the show, Caroline Mesquita, coexist.

The large hall of the museum serves as the closure to this journey with the most powerful proposals from a scenic point of view gathered under the denomination 'Spaces/Revelations' where Yang's blinds reveal the compelling work of Louise Bourgeois, whose iconic spider once presided over the courtyard of the Picasso Museum and now converts a gigantic water tank of a building in New York into a room in which we glimpse an anguishing vision of the woman and the world of the author with the representation of childbirth through those 'Precious Liquids' of the title. "This exhibition stands out for the dialogue established between artists from different origins and different eras," the curators concluded.

The recent renewal for another ten more years of the Pompidou in Málaga was also present at the press conference presenting the new semi-permanent collection, which is sponsored by the 'La Caixa' Foundation. The mayor himself, Paco de la Torre, the curators, and the production director of the Centre Pompidou, Claire Garnier, referred to this long collaboration between the exhibition institution and "a city that has known how to bet on contemporary and modern art," as the chief representative from Paris described Málaga.

Moreover, the 'reset' of the Málaga funds occurs at a strategic moment when the city is gaining even more prominence as a showcase for the Pompidou in the world ahead of the imminent closure of the Paris headquarters in September and the start of the rehabilitation works of the headquarters in January 2026, which will last for five years. A word, 'closure', that is avoided by the French institution that prefers to speak of "metamorphosis," as Garnier said. What the official did admit is that the "association" with Málaga, which was the first Centre Pompidou outside France, "rises in importance" as it becomes the destination for a valuable collection that in the coming years will "circulate" even more to reach "all possible audiences." A joint path that the Frenchwoman has emphasized with a "long life to this sponsorship" with Málaga.