Picasso had a long history of abusive behaviour towards women, writes Charlotte Jansen in Vogue. But is there a better way forward than cancelling him altogether?
“One of the things that makes art great is that it outlives us,” Molesworth suggests. A work of genius should transcend time and place and speak its own story, one detached from the circumstances of its creation – at least in theory.
But still, Picasso’s work hangs on public walls, and is held up as an example of unrivalled ingenuity. Galleries and museums have continued to exhibit Picasso since 1901 – with at least 50 exhibitions on Picasso taking place this year alone to mark 50 years since the artist’s death. Picasso can no longer abuse women, but the majority of these exhibitions – such as the one at the Picasso Museum in Paris, curated by Paul Smith – have chosen to ignore Picasso’s unsavoury personal life.
Perhaps the answer to the Picasso problem isn’t cancellation, but to simply make space – space to recognise the impact of sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination and violence on shaping the course of history. When a cultural icon is accused of a terrible act, we need to talk about its effects.
“Art is really about all of us, it’s about society,” Molesworth says, equating cancel culture to another form of enforced silence. What we do with figures like Picasso reflects a shifting will to challenge male power and genius – and reinstate what it has wilfully obliterated . If we cancel him, and figures like him, we also cancel stories of resistance to those men, and radically alter our own understanding of the present.
Perhaps we need to return to Gilot herself for the answer. Despite the abuse she experienced, and eventually being driven out of France by Picasso, Gilot didn’t try to quell Picasso’s achievements as an artist. She also refused to be defined in his terms Her vision was always trained forward, to the potential that could still be realised: “I am living in the present, not in the past. Or in the future, I don’t know.
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