I Haven’t Seen Hannah Gadsby’s Picasso Exhibit, But I’m Against It
When an exhibit inspires this much conversation, you know that it’s failed.
Hannah Gadsby? Picasso? Don’t get me started.
Let me get this straight: I haven’t been to Hannah Gadsby’s Picasso exhibit, the one that’s inspired condemnation everywhere from the Flop Soup podcast to The New York Times, but I remain deeply and unequivocally against it.
To be honest, I haven’t really thought about Picasso, the 20th century Spanish painter and cubist, until this week. In fact, I just had to Google Picasso to check that he was a cubist. Next… I have to Google what cubism is.
Anyway, what I don’t need to Google is the fact that Gadsby’s curation of Pablo-matic — and I will just be using their surname now — is reprehensible. Pablo Picasso is one of the greatest geniuses of our time, is he not? At least, that’s the sort of thing I’ve heard people say, and I hardly think it’s the place of the Brooklyn Museum, who state that their mission is to “expand and challenge the traditional art historical canon by including multiple perspectives”, to question that.
I’ve also heard that the exhibit includes paintings by random women artists and very few of Picasso’s own works and honestly, what is the point? Haters will say that they aren’t actually the works of random women but actually a “vital survey of feminist art acutely aware of Picasso’s legacy”, many of which challenge the idea that the label “genius” is a divinely gifted label rather than the product of a system of power that excludes anyone who isn’t white and male.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of women artists. Arguably, I am a woman artist — or at least, a woman. But there is a time and place to challenge the cult of male genius and it’s somewhere else and at some other point. Like in a Substack, or on a piece of scrap paper that you immediately throw out. But not in an exhibit. And certainly not at one that commemorates the 50th anniversary of his death. The body’s still warm!
Again, I haven’t seen the exhibit. But I couldn’t be more disappointed that the mastermind behind Nanette, which I also haven’t seen, would stoop to such lows. Yes, Picasso hated his children and only really painted women if they were naked or sleeping, but is that not what women are usually doing? It’s 2023, and men are women are basically equal at this point*, so grow up. Sorry, but when an exhibit inspires this much conversation, you pretty much know that it’s failed.
This satirical article is written by Reena Gupta, Junkee’s Deputy Editor. She tweets at @purpletank.