A conversation with the Brooklyn Museum’s director, Anne Pasternak, a few weeks after the debut of “It’s Pablo-Matic.”
Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos Getty Images
Walking through the Brooklyn Museum’s new exhibit “It’s Pablo-Matic,” the Jonathan Richman song “Pablo Picasso” kept running through my head, to the point where I couldn’t believe it wasn’t playing from loudspeakers. “Girls could not resist his stare and so Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole … not in New York,” the song goes. Well, no longer, I guess.
But it’s also a nuanced exhibit, with challenging and beautiful work by both Picasso and the non-male artists who’ve grappled with his legacy for the past 50 years. The main problem is that while the whole thing wouldn’t exist without Gadsby — they inspired it and helped Small and Morris select the art for it — their fame has overshadowed the exhibit’s intentions.
This is something the Brooklyn Museum can lean into. These are the conversations that people are having today. Why should a museum not have these conversations?: Well, there were a bunch of reasons for it. First, the Picasso Administration announced a placeholder title for our exhibition — “A Feminist Take on Pablo Picasso.” Immediately, the global media picked up on it and assumed that we were out to cancel Picasso, which is the most ridiculous thing of all time.
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