In September 2026, the Art Encounters Foundation will bring works by Pablo Picasso from the collection of the Musée Picasso, Antibes to Timișoara for the first time. The exhibition “Picasso en visite” brings together paintings, prints, and ceramics in an international project dedicated to one of the major milestones in art history, marking the inauguration of the new Art Encounters art center.
Curated by Jean-Louis Andral, director of the Musée Picasso in Antibes, the exhibition presents 69 works that explore a significant period in the artist’s practice: the years Picasso spent in the south of France. Beyond his established image, the selection offers a perspective on the freedom of his artistic gesture and on the way he moved between painting, drawing, printmaking, and ceramics in a continuous process of reinvention.
Mythological themes, hybrid figures, and transformed forms reveal an artist constantly engaged in experimentation, whose practice remains surprisingly contemporary. After his period at Château Grimaldi in Antibes, Picasso donated the works created there to the city. In 1966, the building became the Musée Picasso, the first museum in the world dedicated to the artist, and its collection remains one of the most important testimonies to the creative freedom that defined Picasso’s life and career.
“This exhibition has a dual purpose: to introduce the public to one of the most influential figures in modern art, a personality as controversial as it is significant for 20th-century art, and to inaugurate an art center entirely dedicated to contemporary art, capable of hosting exhibitions at international museum standards, extensive educational programmes, and new forms of dialogue with the public,” says Diana Marincu, Artistic Director of the Art Encounters Foundation.
The exhibition “Picasso en visite” also marks the opening of the new Art Encounters art center, the result of an extensive modernization process carried out in collaboration with Attila KIM architects. Designed according to international museum standards, the new space includes exhibition halls, areas dedicated to interdisciplinary projects and educational programmes, a bookstore, a café, and an urban garden, becoming an open platform for gathering, learning, and cultural exploration.
Through this inauguration, Art Encounters strengthens its role as a space dedicated to dialogue between contemporary art and the public, opening a new chapter in the foundation’s activity and in Timișoara’s cultural infrastructure.
The exhibition “Picasso en visite” will be open to the public from September 17, 2026, to January 17, 2027. Tickets will be available starting in July 2026 through dedicated online platforms. The exhibition schedule and details about related events will be announced in the coming weeks.
