Monday, October 26, 1998
Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosts showing of works by
Picasso
EXHIBIT: Sculptor, poet, painter famous for use of surreal,
cubist style
By Amanda Miller
Daily Bruin Contributor
Sensuality and aggression, serenity and protest, hope and
anguish … the feelings Pablo Picasso conveys through his art
emerge as vividly as the colors he uses.
Through January 4th, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
(LACMA) is presenting a Picasso collection  including
watercolor and oil paintings, drawings, sculptures, collages and
prints spanning Picasso’s artistic development from 1904 through
1971.
At ten years old, Picasso had already mastered techniques of the
experts who painted reality the way we all see it. But Picasso saw
the world through distinctly different lenses.
His vision portrayed a world in fragments and pieces, and he
strove to reveal the true essence of people, landscapes and
objects. Although influenced by other painters of his time, like
Cézanne and Matisse, Picasso literally revolutionized the
world of art.
"For a lot of people, the whole of 20th century modern art is
almost synonymous with Pablo Picasso. He is clearly a giant
figure," comments Paul Von Blum, a professor of social sciences and
humanities. Von Blum lectures and has written numerous books and
articles examining the relationship between art, culture and
society.
Neither expertise nor experience are needed to appreciate art,
especially art that touches upon as many themes and styles as does
Picasso’s.
"Many people think that Picasso’s work will be difficult and
inaccessible," exhibit curator Lynn Zelevansky says. "But, for a
late 20th century audience who has witnessed the attraction of
cubism through media as familiar as MTV, his work is really very
appropriate."
Skyler Mardian, a third-year communication studies student who
considers herself a definite novice when it comes to art recalls,
"My preconceived ideas of Picasso were of faces with distorted
eyes, art that looks like a kindergartner could do it
"I was surprised to see how many different types of art Picasso
created, like sculptures made out of driftwood, nails and a tree
branch, and a lot of really neat watercolors and sketches,"
Mardian
continues. "Everything was so different. Some things I couldn’t
even believe the same artist had done them."
Picasso’s work is so prolific that it is not unusual to find a
couple of his paintings in any modern art museum throughout the
world. But it’s not so often that more than 100 pieces of his work,
representing each stage in the metamorphosis of his artistic life,
come together in Los Angeles.
The works are from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York,
which has one of the finest Picasso collections in the world. But
the exhibition includes more than 60 works usually not at MoMA.
The exhibition is quite unique, according to Zelevansky. "The
idea that you can go to New York to see this exhibit is totally
false. First of all, most of the works are never on view. And all
of the works on paper are always rotating locations."
In every color theme imaginable, from morbid grays to laughing
primaries, Picasso communicated the artistic inspiration he found
across the gamut of humanity.
Acrobats and dancers reveal the joyous vulnerability of
movement. Common workers and the faces of random individuals convey
the frustrations of daily life and the working class struggle.
Numerous profiles and feminine figures proclaim Picasso’s love for
women and reveal the complex mosaic of his romantic terrain.
And the life of Picasso was extreme in almost every way. He
lived an incredibly turbulent life," comments Von Blum. "The nature
of his life is inseparable, in my view, from his art."
Although born in Spain and fond of Spanish traditions like the
bullfight, Picasso spent most of his life in France. He faced many
trials during his early years, including the suicide of one of his
closest friends and long stretches of extreme poverty. Living in
perpetual disorder and chaos, Picasso claimed such factors to be
essential to his creativity.
Picasso loved a different woman during nearly every stage of his
life, varying from fellow artists to dancers to intellectuals. Each
love left a notably distinct flavor upon his work. "Girl Before a
Mirror," the signature piece of the exhibit, embodies the ideals of
fertility and erotic bliss that Picasso found in a new love as a
previous marriage crumbled apart.
Never shunning politics, Picasso once said, "Painting is not
done to decorate apartments. It is an offensive instrument of war
against the enemy."
He protested the Fascist regimes of Europe with "Guernica", a
famous piece which denounced the horrors of the German bombing of a
small town in the Basque northern region of Spain at an hour when
the streets were full of people.
He was labeled a revolutionist and joined the communist
party.
"Picasso’s political involvement is an element of his career
that perhaps doesn’t get as widely disseminated as it ought to be,
but it is central to his life and to his work," says Von Blum.
Clearly of a multi-faceted and tumultuous character, Picasso
sang, wrote poetry, sculpted, created graphics and painted. His
dynamic style was influenced by the excitement of city life, the
retreat of nature, the tribal intrigue of African art or the
infatuation of a new lover.
But, as Von Blum points out, Picasso was "egocentric beyond
imagination."
Zelevansky says that Picasso was "a definite participant in the
creation of his own myth." He knew how to manipulate the media in
order to orchestrate his own fame.
"After World War II, when Picasso became a symbol of the
liberation of France, Americans became interested in him, and he
began to be photographed a great deal," says Zelevansky. "He was a
wonderful subject for photography, and he worked at being a
wonderful subject for photography. Neither his voice nor his image
on moving picture had the same intrigue, so he never allowed people
to record him in these media."
Although he was a man not easily guided by tradition, unorthodox
in his personal life and prone to pushing the buttons of power and
challenging the status quo, Picasso was a slave to art.
In 1963, when he was 81, he stated "Painting is stronger than
me. She makes me do her will." Even at that point in his life, he
was still producing as tremendous a quantity of work as he had at
age 30.
As noted by Zelevansky, today even television draws upon the
revolutionary techniques of Picasso, such as cubism and surrealism.
"In terms of abstract art, the cliches of modernism have found a
real way into pop culture through cartoons and caricatures, like a
woman with two eyes on the side of her face. They derive from
Picasso. So, in the public imagination, Picasso is modernism. He is
modern art."
ART: To avoid lines, buy tickets through Ticketmaster by calling
(213) 462-ARTS (2787). They are also available at the LACMA box
office. Adult tickets cost $12 on weekdays and $15 on weekends, and
include entrance to the museum’s regular collection. Photos
courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Pablo Picasso painted the canvas piece, "Girl Before a Mirror",
in 1932.
Picasso’s "Maquette for Guitar" is on display at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art.
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