Had I stayed a little bit longer in New York, I would’ve been able to see It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby at the Brooklyn Museum. It’s another matter altogether whether I could have actually brought myself to visit this show. The BM has called the project “experimental” and “conversational”. Most of the reviews I’ve read have called it “puerile” or words to that effect. When the curator’s considered opinion of Picasso is: “I hate him”, there was a never much chance this exhibition would tell us anything intelligent or insightful about the most famous artist of the 20th century.
Judging by the reviews, Gadsby hasn’t even managed to tell us anything insightful about the works of the female artists she sets against Picasso. She includes nothing by those artists who were closest to Picasso, such as Françoise Gilot or Dora Maar, and commentators have struggled to find any relevance in most of the chosen works. It sounds like a supremely sloppy and arbitrary selection.
In place of any contextual commentary there are a lot of lame gags and one-liners that some have compared to graffiti on toilet walls. As I’m only speaking from what I’ve read, I can’t go into a detailed critique of this stuff. The simple, abiding question is: “What did the Brooklyn Museum think it was doing?”
This so-called experiment should be beneath the dignity of any reputable museum. It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about Picasso – ie. he was a misogynistic old bastard. Neither does it refute or undermine any of his achievements. You don’t win an argument by calling someone names and saying “I hate him”. This is not simply a betrayal of the scholarly mission of the museum, it’s giving space to loud-mouthed, ignorant, philistine attitudes that should not be encouraged in small children let alone adults.
There may be a certain voyeuristic interest in seeing what kind of art a so-called celebrity likes, but that’s rather different to providing a forum for one to tell us about everything they hate. It’s worse than disappointing, it’s disgusting. It’s as ugly as the misogynistic attitudes that Gadsby decries, because it returns hatred for hatred. To present this in the guise of humour is worse again. It’s like spitting on a Picasso painting for a laugh. Since there seems to be little more to the show than Gadsby’s opinions or feelings, the entire thing sounds like a monstrous piece of narcissism given institutional respectability by the Brooklyn Museum.
This is what happens when every standard of art appreciation is trashed in favour of the most brain-dead identity politics. I’ve never found Hannah Gadsby to be the least bit funny, while her pronouncements on art history range from the lamentable to the unspeakable. Pardon the “her”, as I realise Gadsby is now a “they”, always the trademark of someone who’s neither pretentious nor self-obsessed. It could be argued that one was more than enough.
This week’s art column looks at the Ramsay Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia. This $100,000 biennial award is given to an artist under 40, an age roughly classified as “young”. It’s a lively show, but not full of amazingly original material. The big talking point is this year’s winner: a work of performance art by Ida Sophia, an emerging talent who knows how to make a splash.
On the verge of another Sydney Film Festival I’ve written about two French movies: Saint Omer and One Fine Morning. Both have been praised sky-high around the world, but I had quite different feelings – which is often the case wth this column. I do, however, try and explain my views, which means I’ll probably never get to curate a Picasso show for the Brooklyn Museum.