Blue, pink, and more...

Picasso (1881-1973) brings crowds at the Metropolitain Museum of Art, at least it did the day of my visit. His works are breaking records at the last Christie's auction. The Met could not go wrong with the latest exhibition titled "Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art". Three hundred works, the entire collection from the Met is on display.

The early works start in 1901. The progression is chronological and it is interesting to see a now famous painter like Picasso trying different techniques, copying other painters like Toulouse-Lautrec or Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, his neighbours in Montmartre.

Several paintings from the Blue period (1901-1904) are in the next room, depicting tragic characters like in the "The Blind Man's Meal". The Pink period is also well represented with harlequins and the famous painting titled "At the Lapin Agile". Slowly, one can see the artist experimenting with lines, colors and his transition to Cubism.

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His mistresses are represented with "The Dream" or "Woman Asleep at a Table", and several portraits of Dora Maar.

A succession of neo-classic portraits mainly pastels made after a trip in Italy following WWII depict his wife Olga. They are lifeless and academic.

The show goes on with linoleum cuts which I found soulless, technically interesting.

The last room is occupied by prints, works done at age 83 years old, the painter allows himself to be irreverent to the church, other painters and famous personages. They are representing scenes of debauchery, soft pornography. The commentaries next to the prints are essential to follow the stories.

A well-intentioned father is explaining to his 6, 7 years old daughter the works of Picasso:" this is woman and here is a man..." In the name of art, the little girl is allowed to look at scenes that would embarrass adolescents, but she is looking avidly, very interested!

Every work from Picasso IN the Met, must have been displayed and I wondered about the goal of this exhibition, 0ther than presenting the works chronologically.

Picasso, Picasso, Picasso! Picasso is also at the MOMA till August 30th.

The Picasso Museum in Malaga is showing 50 works with a common theme: horses, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona is opened with more works to look at. How can an artist fill so many places?

The Musee National Picasso in Paris is closed till 2012 for upgrades.

I visited the exhibition "Picasso et les maitres" (October 08-February 09) at Le grand Palais in Paris. Picasso's inspiration has been called "cannibalism pictural", but when measured with the Great Masters he cannibalized, he fared well.

photographs by the author

Dreamtime

For the first time, aboriginal art is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with fourteen works painted mostly during the past decade.

Developed in the course of 20 000, maybe 40 000 years of history, representing more than 600 groups, aboriginal art can be considered as modern. It is born the year 1971, in the community of Papunya in the Northern Territory where a young art teacher encouraged schoolchildren and Aboriginal men to draw tribal symbols on bark, walls, canvas. Till then, the signs had been traced in the sand with a stick and were a tool to communicate between aboriginal tribes who had different languages. They were also a mean to reach the Dreamtime.

Each symbol has a different level of interpretation and cannot be understood without some initiation. To quote the introduction to an exhibition of aboriginal paintings "Dot and Circle", 1985 in Melbourne, Australia:

"Andrew Crocker sees the paintings working effectively on at least four levels:

a) mnemonics for the stories which are depicted and which are also sung and which comprise Aboriginal lore and law;

b) cartographic mnemonics which inform and remind of topography and proprietary rights to land according to Aboriginal law;

c) religious expression. The paintings have scrupulously omitted esoteric subjects. Often, however, while the painting is ruled safe, the full story associated with it cannot be revealed;

d) the authentic artistic expression of a contemporary painter."

Since the paintings have been made with acrylic on canvas, aboriginal art has flourished and is shown in galleries and museums in Australia. The recognition of aboriginal culture in Australia is almost parallel to this art movement represented by several groups, some from the Northern Territory, others from Central Australia or Western Australia.

This did not happen without reservation by some members of the tribes who felt that these secret, sacred symbols should be viewed only by initiated tribal elders. Within the tribe, not all members were allowed to look at the signs, especially women. It is ironical that, according to an article in Artnews, "today some of the most sought-after aboriginal painters are women".

Prices are climbing with a triple digit gain since the 70s.

The anthropologists have lost, the art world has gained. The art viewer can be introduced to a secret world, inspired by this vast land. But could "aboriginal art" be considered neo-colonialism, or is it a natural adaptation to a new world?

photograph by the author