New York (dpa) – Australian stand-up comedian Hannah Gadsby is curating a landmark New York exhibition of Pablo Picasso works from a feminist-critical perspective at the start of June.
“Picasso said, ‘You can have all the perspectives at once!’ What a hero,” Gadsby is quoted as saying at the entrance to the exhibition. “But tell me, are any of those perspectives a woman’s? Well, then I’m not interested.”
Picasso was a notorious sexist and macho, a fact that has emerged as a focus of exhibitions around the world marking 50 years since the death of Spain’s best-known painter.
The Brooklyn Museum exhibition titled “It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby” opens on June 2 and runs until September 24.
In a show comprising around 100 exhibits, Gadsby comments on paintings and drawings by Picasso and places works by female artists next to them.
According to the museum, the exhibition aims to examine the painter’s legacy “through a critical, contemporary and feminist lens” while recognising “his work’s transformative power and lasting influence.”
The Spanish-born painter, who later lived mostly in France, is considered one of the most influential and successful artists, the founder of Cubism and a key player in Surrealism.
Countless books and articles have been published on the subject of Picasso’s treatment of women, but only in the wake of the #MeToo movement is the presentation of his works in galleries being widely reassessed.
His depiction of female subjects is now seen as having often been derogatory, while his cubist paintings have been described as dismembering the bodies of women.
Picasso painted the women in his life countless times – at the beginning of a relationship in gentle compositions, but at the end often as distorted figures. Of the seven women who by official count were partners of Picasso, two killed themselves and two suffered from depression.
“Every time I change wives I should burn the last one. That way I’d be rid of them. They wouldn’t be around to complicate my existence,” Picasso once said.
Gadsby, who also has a degree in art history, previously took a critical look at Picasso in 2018 in her comedy show “Nanette”, which became world famous through Netflix. This led to the collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum.
