#picasso Exposition

[the--chaos]

🩷🖼️

[bizarreauhavre]

Paris, musée Picasso, 24 octobre 2023

[a-modernmajorgeneral]

At the 1937 International Exposition in Paris, two colossal pavilions faced each other down. One was Hitler’s Germany, crowned with a Nazi eagle. The other was Stalin’s Soviet Union, crowned with a statue of a worker and a peasant holding hands. It was a symbolic clash at a moment when right and left were fighting to the death in Spain. But somewhere inside the Soviet pavilion, among all the socialist realism, were drawings of fabulous beasts and flowers filled with a raw folkloric magic. They subverted the age of the dictators with nothing less than a triumph of the human imagination over terror and mass death.

These sublime creations were the work of a Ukrainian artist, Maria Prymachenko, who has once again become a symbol of survival in the midst of a dictator’s war. Prymachenko, who died in 1997, is the best-loved artist of the besieged country, a national symbol whose work has appeared on its postage stamps, and her likeness on its money. Ukrainian astronomer Klim Churyumov even named a planet after her.

When the Museum of Local History in Ivankiv caught fire under Russian bombardment, a Ukrainian man risked his life to rescue 25 works by her. But Prymachenko’s entire life’s work is now under much greater threat. As Kyiv endures heavy attacks, 650 paintings and drawings by the artist held in the National Folk Decorative Art Museum are at risk, along with everything and everyone in the capital.

‘A murderous intruder in Eden’ … another of Prymachenko’s grotesque creatures. Photograph: Prymachenko Foundation

It’s said that, when some of Prymachenko’s paintings were shown in Paris in 1937, her brilliance was hailed by Picasso, who said: “I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian.” It would make artistic sense. For this young peasant, who never had a lesson in her life, was unleashing monsters and collating fables that chimed with the work of Picasso, and his friends the surrealists. While the dictatorships duked it out architecturally at that International Exhibition, Picasso unveiled Guernica at the Spanish pavilion, using the imagery of the bullfight to capture war’s horrors. Prymachenko, too, dredged up primal myths to tackle the terrifying experiences of Ukrainians.

Her pictures from the 1930s are savage slices of farmyard vitality. In one of them, a beautiful peacock-like bird with yellow body and blue wings perches on the back of a brown, crawling creature and regurgitates food into its mouth. Why is the glorious bird feeding this flightless monster? Is it an act of mercy – or a product of grotesque delusion? In another drawing, an equally colourful bird appears to have its own young in its mouth. Carrying it tenderly, you might think, but only if you know nothing of the history of Ukraine.

At first sight, Prymachenko might seem just colourful, decorative and “naive”, a folkloric artist with a strong sense of pattern. Certainly, her later post-1945 works are brighter, more formal and relaxing. But there is a much darker undertow to her earlier creations. For Prymachenko became an artist in the decade when Stalin set out to destroy Ukraine’s peasants. Rural people starved to death in their millions in the famine he consciously inflicted on Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933.

Had she been an ‘intellectual’, she could have ended up in a gulag or worse …Prymachenko.

Initially, food supplies failed because of the sudden, ruthless attempt to “collectivise” agriculture. Peasants were no longer allowed to farm for themselves but were made to join collectives in a draconian policy that was meant to provide food for a new urban proletariat. Ukraine was, and is, a great grain-growing country but the shock of collectivisation threw agriculture into chaos. The Holodomor, as this terror-famine is now called, is widely seen as genocide: Stalin knew what was happening and yet doubled down, denying relief, having peasants arrested or worse if they begged in cities or sought state aid. In a chilling presage of Putin’s own logic and arguments, this cruelty was driven by the ludicrous notion that the hungry were in fact Ukrainian nationalists trying to undermine Soviet rule.

“It seems reasonable,” writes historian Timothy Snyder in his indispensable book Bloodlands, “to propose a figure of approximately 3.3 million deaths by starvation and hunger-related disease in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933”. These were not pretty deaths and they took place all around Prymachenko in her village of Bolotnya. Some people were driven to cannibalism before they died. The corpses of the starved in turn became food.

Born in 1908, Prymachenko was in her early 20s when she witnessed this vision of hell on Earth – and survived it to become an artist. But the fear did not end when the famine did. Just as her work was sent to Paris in 1937, Stalin’s Great Terror was raging. It is often pictured as a butchery of urban intellectuals and politicians – but it came to the Ukrainian countryside, too.

So it would take a very complacent eye not to see the disturbing side of Prymachenko’s early art. The bird in its parent’s mouth, the peacock feeding a brute. Maybe there is also survivor guilt, and a feeling of alienation from a destroyed habitat, in such images of strange misbegotten creatures lost in a nature they can’t work and don’t comprehend. One of her fantastic beasts appears blind, its toothy mouth open in a sad lamentation, as it stumbles through a garden on four numbed clodhopping feet. A serpent and a many-headed hydra also appear among the flowers, like deceptively beautiful, yet murderous intruders in Eden. In another of these mid-1930s works, a glorious bird rears back in fear as a smaller one perches on its breast, beak open.

There’s nothing decorative or reassuring about the images that got this brave artist noticed. Far from innocently reviving traditional folk art, her lonely or murderous monsters exist in a nature poisoned by violence. Yet she got away with it – and was even officially promoted right in the middle of Stalin’s Terror, when millions were being killed on the merest suspicion of independent thought. Perhaps this was because even paranoid Stalinists didn’t think a peasant woman posed a threat.

Her spirit survives … a rally for peace in San Francisco, recreating a work by Prymachenko called A Dove Has Spread Her Wings and Asks for Peace. Photograph: John G Mabanglo/EPA

Prymachenko remembered that, as a child, she was one day tending animals when she “began to draw real and imaginary flowers with a stick on the sand”. It’s an image that recurs in folk art – this was also how the great medieval painter Giotto started. But it was Prymachenko’s embroidery, a skill passed on by her mother, that first got her noticed and invited to participate in an art workshop in Kyiv. Such origins would inevitably have meant being patronisingly classed by the Soviet system as a peasant artist. An “intellectual” who produced such work could have ended up in the gulag or worse.

Yet, to see the sheer miracle of her achievement, you must also set Prymachenko in her time as well as her place. The Soviet Union in the 1930s was relentlessly crushing imagination as Stalin imposed absolute conformity. The Ukrainian writer Mikhail Bulgakov couldn’t get his surreal fantasies published, even though, in a tyrannical whim, Stalin read them himself and spared the writer’s life. But the apparent rustic naivety of Prymackenko’s work let her create mysterious, insidiously macabre art that had more in common with surrealism than socialist realism.

Then, incredibly, life in Ukraine got worse. Prymachenko had found images to answer famine but she fell silent in the second world war, when Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union made Ukraine one of the first places Jews were murdered en masse. In September 1941, 33,771 Kyiv Jews were shot and their bodies tossed into a ravine outside their city. Prymachenko was working on a collective farm and had no colours to paint.

In the 1960s, she was the subject of a liberating revival, her folk designs helping to seed a new Ukrainian consciousness. There’s an almost hippy quality to her 60s art. You can see how it appealed to a younger audience, keen to reconnect with their Ukrainian identity.

The country has other artists to be proud of, not least Kazimir Malevich, a titan of the avant garde famous for Black Square, the first time a painting wasn’t a painting of something. Yet you can see why Prymachenko is so loved. Her art, with its rustic roots, expresses the hope and pride of a nation. But the past she evokes is no innocent age of happy rural harmony. What she would make of Putin’s terror one can only guess and fear.

[parisaimelart]

Jusqu’au 30 avril, les Beaux-Arts de Paris nous démontrent, avec son exposition « Gribouillage / scarabocchio de Léonard de Vinci à Cy Twombly » que gribouiller, griffonner est l’enfance de l’Art, les prémices de la pulsion créatrice. Qu’y a t’il avant l’oeuvre finale ? Comme en attestent les dessins présentés , les plus grands maîtres : De Vinci, Michel-Ange, Rembrandt, Géricault, Delacroix, Dubuffet, Giacometti, esquissent, ébauchent des nuques, des mains, des corps pour saisir l’attitude réaliste qu’ils produiront in fine. Ce sont, selon l’expression de Léonard de Vinci, des compositions incultes, brouillons exploratoires menant à la vérité. Ces ébauches fascinent. Elles nous rendent témoins de la fulgurance créatrice de l’artiste. Le geste est instinctif et sans contrainte. Il se libère sur le premier support venu : au dos d’une oeuvre, une nappe de table, un carnet, en marge d’une feuille, un mur d’atelier. Gribouiller comme un enfant est le début et la fin d’une oeuvre. Pablo Picasso n’hésite pas à dire : « J'ai mis toute ma vie à savoir dessiner comme un enfant. » . Kandinsky collectionne les dessins d’enfant et s’en inspire. Klee les cite comme modèles dans ses cours du Bauhaus. Cy Twombly et Jean Michel Basquiat feront du gribouillage leur signature créative. Vous cherchez votre prochaine exposition ? Abonnez-vous à mon compte Instagram paris_aimelart @beauxartsparis @paris_aimelart @paris @timeoutparis @quefaireaparis @paris.explore @paris_art_com @artaparis @paris_culture @expositionparis.info @paris_love_street @parismusees #beauxartsdeparis #gribouillage #renaissancepainting #artcontemporain #cytwombly #basquiat #picasso #klee #kandinsky #bauhaus #ArtExhibition #ParisMuseum #SortirAParis #parisaimelart #paris_aimelart #parisexpos #parisexposition #exposparis #paris #exposition #parismusees #parisculturel #quefaireaparis #artparis #parisart #parislife #parissecret #parisianlife #culture #expo (à Beaux-Arts de Paris) https://www.instagram.com/p/CosPa_7o-Hd/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[myquestionablejourney]

Eurotrip// Barcelona

[jacqwess]

Picasso, en veux-tu, en voilà...

Picasso forever. Or at least, 50 times Picasso, 50 years after his death. I didn't see all 50 (!), I saw only 3. But I loved them all. However often we may have seen some of the works shown, they remain fascinating.

[artspaume]

[lesb0]

I don't think we can expect everyone to know a lot about art on a deep level, but I do miss more info in art museums. If there are texts I find that they tend to be very surface level. I think it would be nice if either there just was given more info on the plaques in the museums, or that there would be also a sort of digital tour you could follow on your phone where you could access the info. The digital tour on your phone gives you the possibility to give way more info than you would ever put on a plaque in a museum and you don't have to try to read it with 7 people at once. I just remember that two summers ago I was walking through the National Gallery in London constantly looking up paintings and the historical events/stories they depicted. I do think, with the internet in our pockets, that the people who are interested have so much more access to art and info about them, but I still think that for permanent expositions museums could put in some more effort.

Having info about the painter, the event/story depicted, the symbolism (or interpretation of it), and some info about the materials used per painting would be nice, but I am also aware that that would end up being a huge amount of work. Non-academic people just often don't have access to academic publications, or simply don't know how to access them (I'm writing here in English, and in my experience publications in English are way easier to find for free in some way than those in Dutch, German or French, at least those I've needed, but you still don't find everything).

Interesting! There is an ongoing critical restructuring of the art museum, as they grapple with changing the ways they function. being colonial institutions invented to create a civilizing effect for the uneducated masses who suddenly are no longer at work 15 hours a day is pretty bad, right? the 18th century ruling class was extremely worried about what poor people would do with all the new leisure time + human rights they had gained after all those pesky revolutions. so enter the public, free, national art museums.

This crucial book by Duncan first criticized national art museums as a ritual space to replace the power that the church used to have: you get dressed up nicely, walk into a museum and perform an act of pseudo-worship by ascending up the giant steps, you follow a map that leads you from one room to the next, in chronological order with Italian renaissance art as the most valuable in this little micro world, and the other cultures ranked lower (looted african art at the very bottom, unless its with a picasso). You speak quietly, never point, don't stand too closely, follow the map, and NEVER run. if you step out of this order, the guards and the other guests will get angry and yell to correct you.

The museum takes the low uneducated dirty working class and teaches them how to act proper through a civilizing ritual.

Last night I told my friend a story Barbara Kruger mentions on Katy Hessel's podcast, that she gained her visual culture education in the lowest way possible, in a basement as one of the copy-paste girls who put the ads together at conde nast.

She wanted to go to museums and teach herself more about art, but felt like she could never feel clean enough to go in, her clothes felt too dirty and old. she felt like she needed to be lint rolled first. Many of my students feel exactly the same, "I can't go to the museum in sweatpants"

As a museologist, there's an idea of removing this authoritative condescendingness to art museums, and that starts by making didactics have as little of the curator's voice as possible, with just a tombstone. I'm trained to look at an artwork and immediately know the things you mentioned: the era, materials, iconographies, and the artists biography. communicating that to a student takes an entire hour every week. I do not look at didactics because I already have immediate basic info and context of every artwork, and I want to spend my time looking at the art itself. About 1% of this info is available on google/wiki.

You think museums should have a digital didactic for each object in a permanent collection? That'd be a fun initiative, essentially digitizing the work of the docent educator.

How would you feel about other visitors, instead of lining up to read a long didactic, were lining up to look between their phone and the art for a 10+ mins lecture that theyre playing at volume level 100?

Now how do you feel when I tell you the British Museum alone has over 8 million objects in its permanent collection, and doing a digital explanation for each one would take centuries if every qualified artist historian in the world worked on it.

To bring up Katy Hessel again: she does a great job at bridging this gap! She only has an undergrad level of understanding art but that actually makes her a great art communicator and instagram docent, she explains really basic things every art historian already knows, the 1% of art history you get on wikipedia but through her great voice. Museums Without Men accomplishes what you propose on a one woman level; an audio guide to the best women artists in a museum collection:

[gacougnol]

ÉDOUARD BOUBAT

Exposition Picasso

1952

[el-moscorrofio-y-el-mercachifle]

Patricia: omg yeahhhh ofc I love picasso, when's his next exposition btw?😀

El Cuartel and everyone watching the scene:

My husband paused the episode just in time lmao i HAD to take a picture of their reactions. Sadly Aura María's expression doesn't come out as good in the pic but i swear it was *chef's kiss* in the show.

[bizarreauhavre]

Paris, 24 octobre 2023.

[aurumacadicus]

What are some of your favorite manga?

Oh I am all over the place lmao. I don't read much anymore, but I'd like to if I could capture that old nostalgia! I'm annoying and have many favorites <3

First, the obvious: Sailor Moon, Yu Yu Hakusho, and InuYasha. In fact, IY was my entry manga lmao. But! I was also obsessed with CLAMP, like Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, Wish, Angelic Layer. (I did see the Cardcaptor anime first, and the manga came later.)

I was (am?) a hardcore shojo girl. Not because I don't like shonen or anything (YYH still one of my faves of that genre), but because they were short runs. Naruto was just beginning to come out when I was a kid, and it was daunting trying to buy/store that many books. I had Zodiac P.I., Tokyo Mew Mew (and à la Mode), and Natsume's Book of Friends (my one exception to short-runs in shojo I think lmao).

I also somehow got into Zombie-Loan? I'm not sure how that happened. It's not my usual genre and I was a bit put off by some of the things that happened in the first volume but I decided to give the second one a shot and with a little more exposition it became one of my favorites as well.

And! I would be remiss if I did not include my favorite shorter runs: I Am Here! and Genkaku Picasso. I am not kidding when I say both of these manga came into my life when I needed them most. I cried all the way through both of them (they are not sad, they just hit me hard because I was so lonely). They're the only manga I own that I haven't put in storage currently because I'll reread them constantly.

[parisaimelart]

Nous connaissons la fascination de Picasso pour l’Art africain, celle que l’on perçoit dans les demoiselles d’Avignon. Le musée de l’Homme, avec son exposition « Picasso et la préhistoire » jusqu’au 12 juin 23, explore l’influence d’une ère encore plus ancienne sur l’oeuvre du maître espagnol. Son éveil artistique est bercé par les découvertes des grottes d’Altamira, de Pech Merle et de la Vénus de Lespugue. Picasso possédait deux moulages de cette statuette en ivoire de mammouth. Il est ébloui par la représentation de la femme, incarnation de la déesse primitive. A l’instar des premiers artistes, il va distordre le corps féminin pour en souligner la beauté. Les sculptures et gravures exposées témoignent de cette insatiable recherche. On s’amuse de la créativité de Picasso à l’observation de sa Vénus du gaz réalisée avec un bruleur de cuisinière. Les dessins pariétaux et, notamment, les empreintes de main en négatif fascinent l’auteur de Guernica. Il veut reproduire la simplicité du premier geste. Il griffe son papier pour faire apparaitre taureaux et chevaux. Il grave au sucre sa propre main. Il y a 27000 ans, pierres et ossements étaient sculptés. On s’émerveille devant les galets finement travaillés par Picasso. Ils stupéfient par leur beauté dépouillée. L’exposition au musée de l’Homme s’inscrit dans le cadre de la « célébration Picasso 1973-2023 » Vous cherchez votre prochaine exposition ? Abonnez-vous à mon compte Instagram paris_aimelart @museedelhomme @le_museum @grottepechmerleofficiel @paris_aimelart @paris @timeoutparis @quefaireaparis @paris.explore @paris_art_com @artaparis @paris_culture @expositionparis.info @paris_love_street @parismusees #museedelhomme #Picassoetlaprehistoire #Artmoderne #pechmerle #prehistoire #picasso #pablopicasso #picassoart #venusdelespugue #ArtExhibition #ParisMuseum #SortirAParis #parisaimelart #paris_aimelart #parisexpos #parisexposition #exposparis #paris #exposition #parismusees #parisculturel #quefaireaparis #artparis #parisart #parisjetaime #parislife #parissecret #parisianlife #culture #expoparis (à Musée de l'Homme) https://www.instagram.com/p/CoxeXqUo52d/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mybeingthere]

Baya was born Fatma Haddad (1931 - 1998), in Bordj el-Kiffan, a beachy suburb of the city of Algiers, at the North-Western tip of Africa. Orphaned by age 5, she was adopted as a teenager by Marguerite Camina Benhoura, a French intellectual who noticed Baya’s artistic talent from a young age. In her homes in Algiers and the South of France, Benhoura provided Baya with art materials and access to French and Maghrebi art magnates.

In 1947, when Baya was just 16, she was discovered by Aimé Maeght, an established French art dealer, and André Breton, who included Baya’s works in the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme at Galerie Maeght in Paris. Almost overnight she caught the attention of Picasso and Matisse, among other prominent artists, for her colorful, spontaneous and “childlike” compositions. “Her work allows us to question so many different histories,” said curator Natasha Boas. “The outsider. The outlier. The woman artist.”

Boas decided on the title, “Baya: Woman of Algiers,” drawing from three points of inspiration: a book by Assia Djebar, the leading feminist theorist from the Maghrebi region of North Africa, titled Women of Algiers in Their Apartment; Picasso’s The Women of Algiers series (1955) inspired by Baya herself; and The Battle of Algiers, a 1966 film directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, based on events during the Algerian War (1954-62).

https://www.thecut.com/.../the-algerian-teenager-who...

[detournementsmineurs]

Exposition “Célébration Picasso, la Collection Prend des Couleurs” en collaboration avec Paul Smith au Musée Picasso, juillet 2023.

[kafkasapartment]

Exposition Vallauris,1961. Pablo Picasso. Signed, original linocut.