
Picasso's studio at 242 Boulevard Raspail, Paris, December 1912. Private collection. © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The artists who first glimpsed Picasso’s cardboard Guitar around 1912 marveled—and sometimes scoffed—at its fragility and seeming impermanence, but almost 100 years later its continued survival, while miraculous, is not its only notable quality. What do artists, in 2011, standing in front of the cardboard Guitar and its sheet-metal counterpart have to say? With this question in mind, curator Anne Umland and I asked a diverse group to visit Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914 and share their impressions.