On this Hannah Gadsby Brooklyn Museum jawn.
“‘It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby’ examines the artist’s complicated legacy through a critical, contemporary, and feminist lens, even as it acknowledges his work’s transformative power and lasting influence.” ―Brooklyn Museum website
I haven’t seen “It’s Pablo-matic,” so I can’t review it with any authority. I can only share some impressions based on pieces I’ve read, most recently at ARTnews and in the New York Times, the latter being like Picasso a pivotal yet problematic 800-pound gorilla. And I can roast Brooklyn Museum Senior Curator Lisa Small’s Instagram story, in which she mistakes a thoughtful and temperate review for MALE RAGE, instantly shutting down any larger inquiry the exhibition was designed to provoke (it “reckons with complex questions,” per the description).
I’m not surprised “It’s Pablo-matic” sucks. The Brooklyn Museum of late has made a frantic bid to mount as much celebrity-driven content as possible, maybe starting with its staging of the V&A’s very successful “David Bowie Is” traveling exhibit. They’ve also leaned into the Met Gala–era mania for fashion design as a worthy and easily marketable addition to the white cube, with recent retrospectives of Thierry Mugler and Virgil Abloh. Pop art as well. Warhol? Of course, inevitable. KAWS.
In a way, “It’s Pablo-matic” is the museum trying to have its cake and eat it too. Loads of regular old non-intellectual people will go and Instagram themselves in front of the Picasso works regardless of what the show’s messaging is. Those ticket sales keep the lights on, so I understand. But the whole affair strikes me as an off-putting mix of arts-admin cynicism and academic ADHD and, via Gadsby’s draw and the messy scramble of foregrounding DEI/identity politics, a desperation to seem relevant and hip. (There’s a “cake and eating it too” element to having a Center for Feminist Art bankrolled by a Sackler girlboss, but let’s park that for now.)
I was quite enthusiastic about the idea of the show when it was first teased! It sounded like an opportunity to engage more proactively with the now-common tropes of Picasso’s Picasso-ness. On one hand, yes, we know. Sexist pig. Male gaze. Got it. I agree. On the other, there’s room to acknowledge his impact and influence as an art giant while situating him in conversation with contemporary artists, female artists, queer artists, non-European artists, the academy, culturally ravenous TikTok kids, and even among his Cubist peers and other like-minded figures in his 20th century orbit.
As my friend Ernesto said, “Understanding why [Picasso is] so revered by artists of both sexes seems like a necessary starting point for this kind of discourse.” Gadsby’s notorious inflexibility re Not Liking Picasso kinda precludes an in-good-faith openness to finding out those artists’ motivations. The smug wisecracks Gadsby adds to the placards and audio guide (as quoted in reviews) don’t really help.
ARTnews called the show “disastrous” in its current iteration, and perhaps the museum should close it for a spell and do a complete overhaul to figure out what Gadsby and the curators actually want to say, or if Gadsby needs to be on board at all. Because it doesn’t have to be this! “Looking back at Picasso from 2023” is a subject with great potential for reappraisals and correctives.
Is the Brooklyn Museum too starstruck by its proximity to an art-literate comedy superstar to think as critically as it should? Heaven forfend it says no to the slebs once in a while, leaves the heavy lifting to the more seasoned eggheads in its ranks. And fires that dipshit Instagram curator.
