It’s Pablo-matic — Brooklyn Museum, New York
From June 2 to September 24, 2023, the exhibition It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby is being held at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, which offers a critical and feminist reading of the legacy of the artist. The art world was, to say the least, shocked by the radical bias of the New York museum which, while being part of the very official program for the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso, in partnership with the Museum Picasso Paris and the Spanish and French Ministries of Culture, invited Hannah Gadsby to offer her reading of the master’s influence. And as she herself says: everything will be fine, we will all continue to live. Except Picasso. Who’s dead.
It’s Pablo-matic is a matter for trial; it challenges a public figure by attacking his morality. An assumed point of view which may not be shared but which deserves better than the passions unleashed on all sides by the aporias of each other, reproaching as much as surfing on the media overrepresentation of Hannah Gadsby (who thereby proves her ability to captivate the audience) and on the social commitment of a museum which is accused of not being specialized enough at the same time as the distance of such an institution is denounced. Art critics, keen on freedom but jealous of their probity chroniclers are having a field day in France and around the world. But what does this exhibition tell us about the art transmission and what does it even teach us about how to seize it?
A committed stand-up figure famous for her show Nanette which, in 2018, brought her international fame by mixing self-mockery and denunciation of the social aporia linked to her homosexuality, Hannah Gadsby has been making sarcastic visits to the National Gallery of Victoria since 2011[ 1], detailing in a monotone and slightly tongue-in-cheek tone works from the museum. A quirky eye and at the very least invested for several years which goes beyond the simple media aura and voluntarily polemical of its humorous points, in the show Nanette, against a Pablo Picasso figure of a history of art encased in his patriarchal domination and personality that is at least overwhelming towards the women who have known him. He is there, like other artists, the target of a moral denunciation as to his behavior in a private life whose escapades carried out in public places are today a matter of reassessing the place we want to give him.
In all objectivity, the question of a generation discussing the conditions for receiving legacies that it wants to celebrate is therefore perfectly healthy. The course of It’s Pablo-matic, against paranoid speeches reading in an artistic proposal by definition exposed to the debate of opinion an attempt to enlist minds more fragile than theirs, therefore imposes a bold reflection on the very modalities of the exhibition, here using a sacred figure to mock its pre-eminence. And above all to reassess the priority given to him throughout these years by confronting him with thirty feminist artists of various generations who share art absolutely with him.
Far from being a simple publicity stunt, the exhibition It’s Pablo-matic therefore aims, by combining the eye of the star Gadsby and the views of curators Catherine Morris and Lisa Small, to explore an alternative to the unequivocal reading of artistic genius. Under the aegis of Gadsby’s quote, using Picasso’s own words, “You can see all the perspectives at the same time!” What a hero! But tell me, is only one of those perspectives that of a woman? So that doesn’t interest me," the exhibition, by acknowledging Picasso’s place, ousts him from its pedestal and no longer makes him the only center of interest. It is that around him, before him and after him, other figures of art were able to see themselves relegated to the background of his own perspective.
We therefore come across throughout a multiple course whose intensity of tones covering the picture rails somewhat serves their singularity, major works by Ana Mendieta, Cecily Brown, the Guerrilla Girls, Betty Tompkins or Faith Ringgold and d other more anecdotal (Renee Cox, Dindga McCannon, Kiki Smith or Kaletta Doolin) which, failing to offer a perfectly coherent selection, organizes a meeting less brutal than expected in its form and does justice to artists who are too little shown. The succession of works by Picasso appears to be more opportunistic than truly conducive to argument, even if contrasts such as his Woman in Grey and The Sculptor, offer the demonstration of a somewhat artificially underlined dichotomy in perspectives. Clearly, the complexity of Picasso’s legacy, in the exhibition as well as in the critical apparatus that accompanies it, is in no way revolutionary.
Surprisingly, the phallic curves show an almost counterintuitive softness. But real moments of grace seem to emerge and the appearances, alongside testimonies of Picasso’s aesthetic revolt, of works by Mickalene Thomas, Femme noire nue, couchee, 2012 or by May Stevens, Big Daddy Paper Doll, 1970 seize by their intensity. Similarly, it remains more than salutary to compare the works of feminists who could have covered the same walls in the last decade of the master’s activity. Behind the almost “motivational” assertions with the highlighting of quotes such as “Not all prodigies are destined to be geniuses” certainly out of step with French expectations of curating in the scientific tradition (or at the very least argued), there is still a lot of humor here with a game between the lightness of section titles, ironic and biting, and the reality they reflect. Because, it must be remembered, Gadsby remains a humorist, certainly committed, but above all she is also exposed to contradiction and does not have the ambition to redefine the standards of the history of art.
If the balance is fragile between participation in the very official celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death and denunciation, the problematic of It’s Pablo-matic also appears a little too wide between highlighting forgotten historical figures and the influence of the painter on new generations more respectful of equality.
Far from the thesis exhibition, the course would appear, without the media hype, almost nuanced, more ethical than philosophical, balancing the obligatory exercise of homage with resonances more in line with the position that the organizers expect from whom want to express themselves. Choosing between the two angles would have undoubtedly offered a clearer reading. But the idea of Pablo Picasso acting as a magnetic pole linking together such different works in time, space and commitment is quite interesting.
We will therefore not discuss here the success or otherwise of the project which, like all “societal” exhibitions, can only be read in favor of the passage of time, but the attempt to play on the grounds of the museum itself. , to confront the works by exhibiting them on an equal level with others is striking in its audacity and does not fail to provoke passionate reactions which will lead a wider audience to discover fascinating works while keeping in mind a necessary commitment. to create the conditions for others to occur.
It offers above all, and this is a non-negligible part of its contribution to public thought, an artistic reflection and staging around moral issues and the principles that guide our reading of the history of art, putting to zero the positions of principle and major assertions to confront each and articulate this properly open question; what responsibility, ethical or not, do we wish to invest in the creation that we defend and that we want to transmit?
It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby, Brooklyn Museum, New York, from June 2nd to September 24th 2023, more information
