A celebration of Kandinsky kicks off 10th birthday of Malaga's Pompidou centre

His last work is unfinished. Without colour. He left it that way because it was the one he was working on when he died. It contrasts with the previous piece, a complete synthesis of his art, which also has the biographical marker that it served as a headboard at his wake. On display in the gallery room before these is the piece that hung in his own dining room, while on the display panel behind that is a sleek-looking, oval-shaped oil painting that was his birthday present to his wife, which he had presented to her as though he were a Russian tsar presenting his queen with a Fabergé egg.

The simile is not that far-fetched if we consider that this artist was the emperor of abstract art, the Russian Vassily Kandinsky and now the absolute protagonist of this new exhibition at Malaga's Pompidou centre. A special and pretty definitive exhibition of his work, one of those events that leave their mark on the calendar for this iconic centre for contemporary art.

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There is more than one reason for this exhibition being so significant - in fact, two reasons. Firstly, the exhibition is celebrating that last Friday marked the tenth anniversary of the opening of the museum. Secondly, its continuity in Malaga city for the next ten years was secured following the signing of a new agreement, also last Friday, by the Parisian institution and Malaga city council.

The ambitious exhibition Vassily Kandinsky, Pioneer of Abstract Art shows "a chronological journey through the artist's life, which was very eventful because he was born Russian in the 19th century, became German in the 1920s and died French. I know of few artists like this, who are a symbol of Europe," said curator Angela Lampe at the launch event for this complete retrospective made up of 47 works of art that cover the painter's artistic biography. It is an exhibition that not only allows us to see how his art evolved, but also to see how his life unfolded, discovering his lesser-known periods.

This is the case for his first paintings after his arrival in Germany at the end of the 19th century, following his decision to leave his future career as a lawyer and economist in Russia. In these early days of his artistry, it is surprising to discover him as one of the Impressionists, painting very figurative landscapes, but with colour already dominating his palette. "He was synaesthetic, he was able to see sounds as colours," stated Lampe of the innovative Kandinsky. This young artist then abandoned form to give prominence to abstract art from 1909 onwards, a trademark art style that he stopped pursuing in the following pieces on show in this exhibition. In these few works he curiously returned to figurative scenes because of the Great War. As a Russian citizen he returned to his country where he was influenced by Constructivism, the avant-garde art movement prevailing in the Soviet sphere.

"These were his most political years, he lost his personal fortune, married Nina Andréyevskaya and became involved in Bolshevik society with the democratisation of culture," said the curator about this period. Kandinsky then broke away with this thinking when he began his relationship with the Bauhaus in 1919, moving back to Germany, becoming a teacher at the Bauhaus art school and, in turn, becoming one of the fundamental faces of this influential artistic movement. Innovation and geometric abstraction infused his tools of the trade and colours faded. Then, with the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s, life took him to Paris in 1933, where he discovered Miró and the artist returned to chromaticism and forms within abstraction, giving his own style a new lease of life.

"This is a unique and intimate exhibition that allows us to enter into contact and get closer to Kandinsky's work," said the exhibition's curator, who stressed that the word that most defines the artist's work is "vibration" because what he sought in art is for "the soul to vibrate from its shapes and colours".

This is a retrospective that offers a broad overview of the life and work of the Franco-Russian-German artist, which also comes together with a "magnificent" staging and layout at the Centre Pompidou Malaga, as Angela Lampe put it.

With sponsorship from Fundación La Caixa, the inauguration of the exhibition Vassily Kandinsky, Pioneer of Abstract Art, which can be visited until September, was attended by Kareen Rispal, French ambassador to Spain. The ambassador cited Malaga's Pompidou as an example of Spanish-French cultural collaboration: "And I say this here, in the city of Picasso's birth, where in 2023 both countries celebrated the anniversary of his death with a close collaboration between our shared museums."

This Picasso spirit that can be felt in Malaga was also mentioned by the president of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Laurent Le Bon, who pointed out that, like the Malaga-born artist, "Kandinsky was a little bit French", which is why both artists were pioneers not only in art, but also in what "today is Europe, so here we feel in our own domain".

Malaga's mayor, Paco de la Torre, also took the floor at the presentation to applaud this great exhibition that "demonstrates the power of the Pompidou in Paris and the possibility of Malaga being a benchmark location for a universal artist."

The speeches ended with Le Bon's call to usher in the next ten years of exhibitions and artistic exchange: "Vive Malaga! Vive le Centre Pompidou Málaga! Et vive les relations culturelles franco-espagnoles!"