THERE is quite possibly no artist more influential in the evolution of art in the past 100 years than Pablo Picasso. Now, for the first time, 180 paintings, drawings and sculptures by Picasso, stretching from his early blue period to shortly before his death in 1972, are on exhibit in the Middle East for three months. Picasso Abu Dhabi opened May 27 at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi amid much fanfare as the emirate begins laying the groundwork for its ascension to its targeted pinnacle as the cultural capital of the Middle East. And it couldn't have started with a better show. Abu Dhabi is the second stop for this show that comprises works from the Musee nacional Picasso in Paris, which houses works that the Picasso family gave to the state in lieu of inheritance taxes at the time of the artist's death. A larger show spent three months at the Museo nacional centro de arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, but the collection on display in Abu Dhabi features calligraphic works that it is posited received some Arab influence given the time Picasso spent in the once Arab-ruled south of Spain. The exhibition's magnificence, however, comes from its sheer size – 180 works – that still represents only a fraction of the estimated 20,000 works of art Picasso created in his 91 years. Arranged chronologically, the show starts off with his Self Portrait (1901), an excellent example of the sober his blue period but a far cry from the thrilling experimentation with perspective and sculptural geometric volume that made him the controversial artist that he was in the first half of the last century. In 1904, Picasso settled in Paris, in bohemian Montmartre, where he took a studio in the same building as Juan Gris and Amedeo Modigliani. It was there he worked on developing Cubism with his friend, the painter Georges Braque, between 1910 and 1916. Cubism introduced a number of new elements to painting, most astonishingly the deconstruction of the human face and figure and even elements of nature into purely geometric forms. Picasso perceived the body as sculptural volume: the neck as a cylinder, the head as an oval, the nose as a triangle, eyebrows curving elegantly into the triangle of the nose. Additionally, in what most people recognize most readily as his work, Picasso experimented with multiple perspectives of, especially, the human face. In such paintings as “Portrait of Dora Maar” (1937) this style can be seen most clearly. One eye seems to be looking straight at the observer while the other is in profile. The nose as well as the mouth may also be depicted from different perspectives at once. Lasting legacy Although elements of Cubism are still evident in some contemporary art, the movement's most lasting legacy perhaps is the idea that a work of art exists in and of itself and need not be a reflection or a representation of anything outside itself. In the various abstract schools of art that followed, this idea is prevalent, even when the source of the painted image or non-image or even a photograph uses reality as its starting point. This is one of the most important, yet for the general public, most perplexing facets of modern and post-modern art. “Painting,” Picasso once said, “is not decoration to be hung on walls; it is a weapon and we must use it.” Picasso used art as a weapon to challenge everyday, ultimately, complacent perceptions of the world and as such, just like the Surrealists with whom he was briefly associated, he was challenging the bourgeoisie and the staid, hypocritical order that it represents. He was condemned by many. In England, the president of the Royal Academy, Sir Alfred Munnings, denounced Picasso's work in a famous speech in which he declared Picasso, along with Matisse and Cezanne, had corrupted art. Munnings recalled that Winston Churchill had once said to him, “Alfred, if you met Picasso coming down the street, would you join with me in kicking his ______?” to which Munning answered “Yes, I would.” There are many who will still condemn Picasso, mainly out of ignorance of the ideas he espoused and his extremely important place in the history of art, both 20th century and beyond. The show at the Emirates Palace hotel offers a chance for the Middle East to explore some of the ideas of modernity that have influenced Western society. If art is a great means of communications, then its most vaunted practitioners must be the greatest of communicators. Picasso in the Middle East may, at first, ring oxymoronic, this could be a very valuable stop on many levels for his work. – SG __
