An event in its own right: the exhibition of Picasso's biggest work, the stage curtain for the ballet Parade

Serge Diaghilev, director of the Ballets Russes, commissioned Picasso to paint the stage curtain for Parade. The ballet, with a scenario by Jean Cocteau and music by Erik Satie, is one of the first examples of avant-garde artists from different disciplines working together. As Guillaume Apollinaire wrote in his preface to the programme, the ballet reveals "for the first time this union of painting and dance, costume and theatre which hails the advent of a more complete form of art." First performed at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 18 May 1917, Parade was hugely controversial and prompted important debate within the Paris avant-garde milieu.

The stage curtain - a huge canvas measuring 10.5 by 16.4 metres (more than 170 square metres) and weighing 45 kilos - is Picasso's largest known painting. It has not been shown in France in more than twenty years. Its mysterious figures and autobiographical nature, reinforced by references to his Rose Period, make it one of the masterpieces in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne. Inspired by the ballet's theme of a travelling circus in search of fame and fortune, Pablo Picasso imagined a curtain depicting poetic scenes, with a Harlequin, performers, a fairy...

GALERIE 1

"What name can we give this war? - At first we called it the '1914 war', then when 1915 came, we said it was the 'European war.' When the Americans joined it became the 'world war' or the 'universal war' which has a better ring. Some are in favour of calling it the 'great war.' The 'war of the nations' has its supporters too. The 'war of the races' could pass muster (…). But the 'war of the Fronts' would perhaps best convey the nature of this gigantic struggle."

Mercure, « Échos – Revue de la Quinzaine »,
Mercure de France, Paris, 1 November 1917,
tome 124, no 465, p. 187

As it leads away from the heart of the conflict to regions further afield, or to inner worlds, the first part of the exhibition shows how artists responded differently to the events of 1917. These individual reactions, when taken together, form a map of creative expression in 1917 from which different types of artist emerge: nineteenth-century personalities, avant-gardists, official war artists, artistsoldiers and soldier-artists, people of all nationalities. This section is structured around recurrent themes, motifs or practices; the emergence of artistic communities and avant-garde movements in troubled times; and how certain artists rejected or distanced themselves from events. A large body of documents highlights the vital importance, in every country, of images and the written word.

GRANDE NEF

"War is not only destruction. It is also fertile and has shaped vocations."

Clément-Janin, « Les Estampes et la guerre »,
Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, October-December, 1917.

The second part of the exhibition is arranged in a spiral, a recurrent motif in the art of 1917 which conveys as much the physical maelstrom as inner torment. It considers the links between creation, destruction and reconstruction. War scarred the soul as much as bodies and faces, buildings and landscapes. Death and injury were omnipresent, putting protection at the centre of concerns, from camouflage to masks whose multiple avatars—military, mortuary and primitive—run throughout this section. Changing identities and altered appearance also belong to the theatrical world, both in civilian society and on the battle front. They reprise the male/female role reversal engendered by war and social upheaval. Harlequin, another masked character, makes repeated appearances up to the climax of the exhibition: Picasso’s stage curtain for the ballet Parade.

1917 goes beyond these two gallery spaces to encompass a display of large military equipment in the Forum.  This spectacular presentation, of a type not usually found inside a cultural venue such as the Centre Pompidou-Metz, will plunge visitors into one aspect of the year 1917.

The exihibition 1917 is a Centre Pompidou-Metz production.
Centre Pompidou-Metz is the first offshoot of a French cultural institution, Centre Pompidou, developed in collaborationwith a regional authority, the Communauté d’Agglomération Metz Métropole.
Centre Pompidou-Metz is an Établissement Public de Coopération Culturelle (public establishment for cultural cooperation) whose founding members are the French State, Centre Pompidou, the Lorraine Region, Communauté d’Agglomération de Metz Métropole and the City of Metz.
Financial support is provided by Wendel, its founding sponsor.

The exhibition 1917 is supported by Caisse d’Épargne Lorraine Champagne-Ardenne and Amis du Centre Pompidou-Metz.

The exhibition 1917 is supported by Ministère de la Défense et des Anciens combatants, secretariat general pour l’administration, Direction de la mémoire, du patrimoine et des archives.

The exhibition 1917 has been realised in partnership with Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contomporaine (BDIC), Nanterre, Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la défense (ECPAD) and Musée de l’Armée.

The exhibition 1917 was devised in collaboration with the Zone de soutien de Metz.

The exhibition 1917 inaugurates a cycle of events commemorating the First World War. It is supported by the Mission du centenaire de la Première Guerre mondiale 1914-2014.

It was devised in collaboration with Cinémateque Robert-Lynen film library in Paris.

It was devised in cooperation with the following media:

The catalogue for 1917 is the sixth to be published by the Centre Pompidou-Metz.

Whereas the exhibition addresses its subject thematically, the 600 pages and 1,070 illustrations of the catalogue adopt a complementary approach in three parts, namely a series of essays, a dictionary, and a journal for the year.

In part one, three essays by historians and art historians shed a general light on the year 1917. The second part takes the form of a dictionary of 1917, comprising 225 concise bibliographic and thematic entries on the people, events, places, disciplines, culture, art and ordinary life that "made" the year. This part is illustrated by many of the works and documents in the exhibition.

Part three, a journal for the year, uses the then popular almanac form, with two brief introductions on image literacy.

Each day is represented by a calendar and a timeline of military, diplomatic, political and cultural events, and is illustrated by documents available to the public in 1917, such as posters and magazines.

The catalogue cover and the exhibition's graphic identity overall are inspired by the camouflage of Texas, a cargo ship requisitioned in the First World War.

Directors
Claire Garnier
Laurent Le Bon

Editors
Camille Aguignier
Claire Bonnevie
Clémentine de La Feronnière

Coordination and Research for the Almanac
Carole Benaiteau, assisted by Ada Ackerman

Layout and Graphic Design
P&J, Laurent Pinon et Aurore Jannin, assisted by Betty Deléon

Proofing
Laurence Peydro

Translation
Ada Ackerman (Russian)
Sonia Goldblum (German)
Marc Phéline (English)
Renaud Temperini (Italian)

Production
Dominique Oukkal