Two Televisual Guernicas: Genius: Picasso (National Geographic, 2018) and El Ministerio del Tiempo (RTVE, 2015–2017)

Abstract

Abstract This article examines two recent television versions of Picasso in the USA and Spain, focusing on the production and reception of his masterpiece Guernica. Reading the TV texts within the specific context of the biopic and science fiction series and the more general framework of the tension between everyday domestic television and quality or complex TV, the article argues that National Geographic's Genius: Picasso (2018), true to its title, offers an individualist view of artistic creation in which the personal takes precedence over the political and, conversely, that RTVE's El Ministerio del Tiempo (2015–2017) integrates the aesthetic object and its creator into the lived experience of the nation and its viewers, preserving and reframing the social dimension of the original work of art.