Staged by Wu Tsang and Enrique Fuenteblanca in collaboration with Roll, Theatre Picasso marks the centenary of Pablo Picasso’s painting The Three Dancers (1925). The exhibition space is transformed into a theatre that stages Picasso’s art, inspired by his approach to performance. Over 45 works from Tate’s collection are presented alongside key European loans, spanning paintings, sculpture, textiles, and works on paper.

Visitors enter the exhibition through the back of house, via an art storage–like gallery space that evokes a backstage or reserve. From there, they progress upward onto the stage from the rear, moving behind the scenes along a large theatre flats partition wall. On stage, a large double-sided projection presents The Mystery of Picasso, while a series of freestanding exhibition walls are arranged across the stage like wings.

An immersive sound environment and a carefully calibrated lighting sequence accompany the route, shifting from the brightness of the storage space to the darkness of the stage, before opening into a lighter atmosphere as visitors exit through an audience-like gallery space.