Published to accompany an exhibition at the Musée national Picasso-Paris produced in partnership with the Calder Foundation and Fundacíon Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, Calder, Picasso explores the uses of negative or empty space in the work of Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), both in their resonances and their differences. With a focus on figurative as well as abstract themes, the exhibition links some 150 artworks by both artists via a thematic lens of void-as-matrix and the corollary proposition that confrontation with the void is a fundamental aspect of 20th-century modernism.

These works are interpreted objectively as well as metaphorically, using the void as a prism through which to analyze the conceptual and formal tensions both artists deploy as a means to place the direct and personal experience of the spectator at the very heart of their work. The catalog maps the tangible traces of a relationship between these two men: their points in common, their encounters, their collaborations and the sometimes extreme confrontation posed in their works through the use of obscure or even illusory perspectives; it includes numerous major texts on these topics by respected specialists.