The traditional celebration will take place on April 8, Holy Saturday.
Pablo Ruiz Picasso died on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91, in Mouging, a picturesque town in France, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. Spain will commemorate this significant date in 2023 and its hometown, Malaga, will join the tributes with the traditional Picassian Bullfight in the Malagueta bullring, changing the date to next Holy Saturday, April 8, just on day on which half a century has passed since the death of the artist in whose work the figure of the bull plays an important role.
Cayetano, Juan Ortega and Pablo Aguado will fight bulls owned by Alvaro Nuñez.
The poster will be of bullfighters of the so-called ‘artists’ such as Cayetano, Juan Ortega and Pablo Aguado, who will fight bulls from the Cádiz cattle ranch of Álvaro Núñez, independent of the family iron of Núñez del Cuvillo.
The Picassian Bullfight will become an event not only because of the singularity that this celebration already represents in itself, but also because of the commemoration of the anniversary, which will be a tribute from Malaga to the figure of Picasso. The billboard for the show is the work of Javier Díaz-Yanes, son of film director Agustín Díaz-Yanes and grandson of the legendary banderillero Michelín.
Presentation of the celebration by Francisco Salado, President of the Malaga Provincial Council
The celebration was presented by the president of the Provincial Council, Francisco Salado, together with José María Garzón, the manager of Lances de Futuro, the company that manages La Malagueta, and the right-handers who will act on the poster: Cayetano Rivera has done it electronically from the United States, where the painter Domingo Zapata is designing the costume that he will debut in the Picassian Bullfight. Zapata is one of the most renowned current artists and has recently been described by the ‘New York Post’ as “the new Andy Warhol”
The Provincial Council will publish a commemorative catalog of this historic exhibition to honor the most universal of Malaga painters, who always demonstrated his great love of bullfighting, according to Salado.
Symphonic Orchestra
The musical part of the Corrida Picassiana will be performed by the Provincial Symphony Orchestra of Málaga, accompanied by the Choir of the Lyric Academy (16 voices). The repertoire will be made up of well-known musical pieces, as well as pasodobles.
Francisco Salado has highlighted the extraordinary nature of this bullfight, which has been brought forward to Holy Saturday to coincide with the anniversary. In fact, it hasn’t been celebrated at Easter for ten years. The last time was in 2013, in which Jiménez Fortes performed alone. Since then, it has always been held in August, within the framework of the bullfighting fair, except in 2020, when there were no bulls in La Malagueta due to the pandemic.
José María Garzón, for his part, has stressed the importance of the return of the bulls to Malaga at Easter and that they do so with the traditional Picassian Bullfight. «We are facing a bullfight that commemorates such an important date as the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death. It is a great pride to organize this extraordinary celebration, where the square will have a special decoration like each Picassiana, like the bullfighters’ bullfighters’ bullfighter costume. I’m sure we’re going to live a unique experience and from here I encourage all the fans not to miss it.”