The Pompidou Málaga opens for free this weekend to celebrate its new collection

The Pompidou Center Málaga is celebrating a new beginning. Last Thursday, it inaugurated its new semi-permanent collection, which has been renewed with works from the French National Museum of Modern Art featuring masterpieces by prominent artists such as Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramovic, Marcel Duchamp, and Piero Manzoni, including his most iconic piece, 'Merda d'artista' ('Artist's Shit', 1961), which challenges the boundaries of art. The new exhibition path, titled 'To Open Eyes', is being celebrated with free admission to the collection throughout the weekend (Saturday and Sunday).

The spirit of this sixth semi-permanent collection arriving from Paris to Málaga is inspired by the German-American artist and teacher Josef Albers who told his students that the purpose of art was "to learn to see." Under this secular invocation, the Pompidou Center 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 tenets of the veteran Swiss-German Paul Klee to the metallic sculptures of the youngest, French artist Caroline Mesquita. This spans over a hundred years of art history and the present.

"Almost a century later, Albers' statement remains relevant; art can teach us to see the world in a new way, a world that indeed has become too complex," stated Valentina Miomas during the presentation last Thursday. She curated 'To Open Eyes' "with four hands" alongside Anne-Charlotte Michaut, aiming ambitiously to view reality through the window of paintings, screens, sculptures, or installations. In this latter group, the gigantic 'Lingering nous' ('Lingering in us') stands out, in which Korean artist Haugue Yang uses dozens of colored Venetian blinds arranged like a fan under a cold, supermarket fluorescent light. Everyday elements transformed into art.

This selection of works "activates the viewer's gaze and perspective, so 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 origin of the journey, 'Icons/Signs', is defined by abstract or conceptual art as a renewer of the very idea of art, where we find everything from a work by Albers himself, the great guru of this renewed collection, to Marcel Duchamp's symbolic shovel which he merely bought and signed, or the aforementioned 'Artist's Shit' that questions the art world and even parodies the notion that everything a creator produces is of quality.

In 'Bodies/Colors', the curators challenge the usual representation of women by giving a voice to the works of Judy Chicago and Friederike Pezold, while in 'Gestures/Marks', the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock or the theatrical and provocative gaze of Marina Abramovic's video performances stand out. The piece that headlines the new collection, 'Cape Count', by Caroline Achaintre, is found in 'Spiritualities/Syncretisms' reminding us to open our eyes with a textile work resembling a Mexican mask, while the comings and goings of architecture and art dominate 'Fictions/Projections', where the futuristic aesthetics of Olivier Mourgue, the 'space art' of Kiki Kogelnik, and the sculptures of the youngest artist in the show, Caroline Mesquita, coexist.

The museum's large hall concludes this journey with the most powerful scenic proposals gathered under the name 'Spaces/Revelations' where Yang's blinds reveal the forceful work of Louise Bourgeois, whose iconic spider once presided over the courtyard of the Picasso Museum and now transforms a giant water tank in a New York building into a room where we glimpse a distressing vision of womanhood and the author's own world with the portrayal of childbirth through the 'Precious Liquids' of the title. "This exhibition stands out for the dialogue established between artists from different backgrounds and different eras," concluded the curators.

The recent renewal of the Pompidou in Málaga for another ten years was also present at the press conference introducing the new semi-permanent collection, sponsored by the 'La Caixa' Foundation. The mayor, 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 described by the top Parisian representative.

Moreover, the 'reset' of the Málaga funds occurs at a strategic moment when the city gains even more prominence as a showcase for the Pompidou in the world with the imminent closure of the Paris headquarters in September and the start of rehabilitation works of the headquarters in January 2026, which will last for five years. A term, 'closure', that the French institution prefers to describe as a "metamorphosis," as Garnier said. What she did admit is that the "association" with Málaga, which was the first Pompidou Center outside of France, "gains in importance" as the destination of a valuable collection that in the coming years will "circulate" even more to reach "all possible audiences." A joint path that the French representative emphatically concluded with a "long life to this sponsorship" with Málaga.