It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso according to Hannah Gadsby had already been roundly denounced when I saw it at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Still, most of the people waiting to enter seemed excited and the gallery was full. The guy behind me was playing the Modern Lovers song ‘Pablo Picasso’ to his friend while we waited for our tickets which sounded a little off the nose but maybe should have been a sign of how things were going .
I should preface by stating that this is not another melodramatic takedown from the series. It’s not a big exhibit, but neither is it the disaster that some have described. I was more annoyed than indignant: with a tighter grip on the reins and a clearer concept, it could have been fun. As it stands, the series is a victim of its own hype.
From the outset, it is unclear whether this is Picasso “through contemporary, critical and feminist lenses”, as the text outside the gallery indicates – implying some scholarship and a focus on works that respond directly to her – or “according to Hannah Gadsby,” which would be a less analytical, more playful exhibition. It’s trying to do both and succeeding in neither. Catherine Morris, Lisa Small, and Talia Shiroma, the Brooklyn Museum curators who curated the exhibit with Gadsby, put together a pretty decent display of works from the museum’s collections Hannah Gadsby, the actress whose performance in 2018 Nanette discussed Picasso as an emblem of misogyny, is credited as co-curator, but their involvement is haphazard. Besides the audioguide, their main presence is a series of wall stickers, accompanying Picasso’s works with their jokes and opinions. These captions feel like asides rather than reviews, and overall the exhibit looks slightly muddled, as if everything was set up before someone brought in Gadsby to fill it up. The captions are harmless and uninspiring – lots of people were laughing when I saw the show. It’s possible (maybe even better, in some cases) to skip those subtitles and have a totally different experience.
Humor is subjective, and the biggest disappointment here isn’t Gadsby’s jokes. What really hurts the show is the lack of imagination. Nothing about his story feels particularly fresh or exciting, other than the quirk of bringing in Gadsby as a co-curator. It’s Pablo-matic is a show’s identity crisis – an exploration of feminist modernism and a shitpost-y trolling of Picasso sharing a room. Where it is weakest is in the actual references to Picasso; many artists make neutral to complementary remarks about him and his work, and only a few works respond directly to his work.
This is where the exhibition’s claim to be a counter-narrative crumbles: these works were not chosen because they challenge or transform Picasso’s work, and this is a feminist exhibition only in the sense that it presents works by feminist artists. Its politics and impact are limited to pitting other artists against Picasso, in a way that falls into a predictable binary. Käthe Kollwitz’s “Bust of a Worker in a Blue Shawl” (1903) – a dark and beautiful lithograph, made when she was in her thirties – is eerily staged alongside some of Picasso’s teenage drawings . Louise Bourgeois, arguably one of the show’s most canonical artists, is well represented here – but the seductive “Casual” (1990) is reduced by Gadsby’s audio guide to the most basic sex joke. It seems that most of these artists are only celebrated for what they are not. They are not men. They are not Picassos. This results in an extremely bitter taste.
The feminist shift that writers and theorists like Linda Nochlin, Griselda Pollock and Rozsika Parker have brought to art – a reconsideration of who becomes a genius, an engagement with what it means to “rediscover” artists pushed outside the mainstream canon – is now firmly embedded in traditional art historical discourse. The Brooklyn Museum has an excellent collection of artwork by black women. Displaying their work so prominently is the most redeeming feature of this show. Nina Chanel Abney’s “Forbidden Fruit” and Emma Amos’ “Flower Sniffer” charmed audiences when I saw the show, though neither had much to do with Picasso’s work. Curators haven’t given other artists the status or space to even begin to stand up to Picasso, but if visitors take this opportunity to learn more about any of the works here, it will be a minor hit. .
There’s the core of a better show here. There are several references to what the Commissioners call the “both/and” interpretation. It looks like a half-developed concept for a different exhibition, which could have brought more nuance to Picasso’s legacy. Picasso is still canonical, but at this point criticizing or questioning him is the norm. I learned about his misogyny, appropriation, and general bad vibes in high school over a decade ago. Gadsby never mentions how or why he became so famous, and the show simply takes his dominance for granted. Notably, they basically have no engagement with his youth – presumably the sketches and portraits here don’t give Gadsby the same fodder for dick jokes as Picasso. Vollard Suite the prints do, and because they are some of the most technically skilled works in the exhibition.
Much of Gadsby’s commentary is by default aesthetic criticism, and it seems that they deeply dislike much of what is exhibited here by Picasso. It’s fine to dislike something, but opting for things like the small pebble-like sculpture “Crying Woman” on the grounds that “Picasso had no formal training in sculpture” is a pretty superficial comment. Both/and art history would mean examining how artists have critically reinterpreted his legacy, or reading his work in relation to his vicious personal life. An important Faith Ringgold exhibition currently at the Picasso Museum in Paris puts his work in dialogue with his to tell a more complex and thoughtful story about power and appropriation. If the comparative shows are done well, they can show a lineage or a mutual point of reference. Instead, the Brooklyn Museum’s version of both/and is a simplistic, girlboss-y narrative that reiterates the most basic arguments of second-wave feminism without substance. Nochlin, Pollock and others have shown the obstacles that prevent women artists from achieving the status of “artistic greatness” and their work has brought some truly incredible art back into the canon; they also showed the error of “discovering” women artists only as substitutes for a famous man. We should be past that by now. It’s Pablo-matic favors novelty over innovation, and what we have left lacks depth.
It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso according to Hannah Gadsby continues at the Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn) through September 24. The exhibition was curated by Hannah Gadsby, Catherine Morris and Lisa Small, with Talia Shiroma.
