I spent a few hours yesterday at The Brooklyn Museum which was the museum of my childhood. The first museum where I saw art. I would later as a teen explore the other places in the city that had art, but this place holds strong memories for me. It's part of my Brooklyn.
I took in "It's Pablo-matic. Picasso according to Hannah Gadsby" which was problematic for me in many ways. The short hand plot of the exhibition is Ms. Gadsby's take on Picasso as a woman hating, misogynic, hard headed guy. Sure he was, but to build an exhibition around this on the 50th anniversary of his death is pushing it a bit. Has this even been done before. Handing over the reigns of an exhibition to a comedian? Is this the start of something new, entertainers as curators?
The show has work by Women artists answering back in many ways to Picasso and his life and legend. Some of the work was good, and some of it was lousy. Some of the artists included I never liked, and some of them I adored. The quality of the work is uneven and suffers that most of the pieces are from the museum's collection and gives off a faint whiff of bargain basement. I won't offer critiques of the work included that would be cruel and misogynistic.
There are ghosts here for me. The only male artist represented here is Philip Pearlstein and his double portrait of Linda Nochlin and her 2nd husband Richard Pommer." Nochlin was of course a world renowned art historian and feminist and the painting as wonderful as it is left me wondering about its inclusion. Its set against a wallpaper like wall of 19th century easy does it porn portraits one of a man and one of a woman in an Andy Warhol like pattern. Were they including Pearlstein because he was known for his beautiful female nudes that some could and would say objectify women? I knew all three of them. Pearlstein, Nochlin and Pommer. Actually Linda and Richard once came for dinner at my loft when I lived with the poet John Perreault. I liked them both and Linda had a wicked sense of humor, picking up off the dinner table a plastic art deco pepper mill and happily saying she thought it was a vibrator. Sassy feminist humor. We all laughed.
Not much of the art shown was angry or hostile towards the great artist, who is represented by a scant group of his work, the best being his etchings. In fact many of the women highly praise his art in the statements accompanying their work.
The real hostility is reserved for Gadsby's poor attempts at humor in the accompanying labels that were mostly embarrassing and cringe worthy. I have never seen her stand up acts, and I don't think I will bother after this. The history of art of course is full of women hating artists, critics and curators, who were wretched in their misogynist views. There were also art movements that were misogynistic, check out the Surrealists for example.
So I knew what to expect from Gadby's rantings and ravings against Picasso. Great artist lousy person so what else is new. If they asked me I could write a book or at least a long list of the many male artists who were hateful towards women, some of which I knew personally. At the time of the last great Picasso exhibition in 2015 at the Moma which covered only his output in sculpture I was attacked viciously by a 4th rate woman artist who called me a “moron” for loving the show. I of course tore her apart and didn't leave much of her for the ravens to pick over, so I of course thought of this miserable incident as I walked slowly through this uneven exhibition that in the end left me sad and weary. See it for yourself, its up till September 24th.
