Picasso for Me

La Celestina 1904 Pablo Picasso (via Seattle Met)

Now at SAM: Picasso:Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris. This is great for Seattle and the Northwest. And especially great for someone like me or for you. I've always respected Picasso, but outside textbooks and short visits to NYC, haven't figured out why I ought to like him. D.K Row of the Oregonian says of the exhibit:

...it strives for broadness, providing an extensive summary of Picasso's career through formidable prints, paintings and sculptures. Every significant period is covered: Picasso's beginnings as an intrepid talent; his Blue Period; the development into Cubism; the many works based on his many wives and lovers (from Olga Khokhlova to Dora Maar to Marie-Thérèse Walter); his absorption of Surrealism and much more.

Jen Graves of The Stranger also has some good first-hand thoughts on the exhibit. It is an extensive exhibit and as Graves points out, full of surprises and pieces not regularly reproduced.

I'm not a fan of a blockbuster. This is an exhibit that could have easily name dropped and been about something else entirely. Or it could have been fluffy (as is probably so tempting for the current climate). But Graves points out how SAM inserts some of it's own curatorial adventurousness: panels are placed throughout the African and other collections linking them to Picasso.

I have yet seen the exhibit - but wish the exhibit could go one step farther and have the guts to place the works throughout the other collections. Besides the security risk, that would be a completely radical and new way to see Picasso's works.

Semi-related: Kelsey pointed out that the PSU Lecture series is happening again. The first was Tina Olsen who talked about museum's role as educating on it's objects. She's also partly responsible for the annual Shine a Light on October 15th.

Finds

Walked by this colored-steel yard today. It's one of those places I've walked by countless times. But something about the season, time of day, the light affects whether I see it. These sorts of things can feel incredibly random. Or, is it about whatever I am fixated on? How many things did I walk by for the umpteenth time today and not see?

I disciplined myself and went to the studio today. But didn't feel focused until I was in the bookstore. It's almost like I spend any given day finding the best activity I am suited for. Sometimes the bookstore is a place I have to visit many times to be focused (I will even stray towards certain aisles depending on the light and start there - where I feel right. If it's Downtown Powell's this usually means near the windows. If it's Hawthorne, it usually is directly down the center).

Haven't been following the Oregonian's Art section recently. But browsed today and liked this on Stephanie Snyder. Her curating philosophy:

Yes, but I don't believe in being didactic or dogmatic. I appreciate what Roberta (Smith) observed about the "overeducation movement" happening at a lot of museums. She was talking about the Brooklyn Museum where the walls are colored, and there are video monitors and wall text everywhere. I don't believe in doing that to viewers. You educate by curating good shows and allowing viewers to have a quiet experience with art.

And also, a new Amsterdamn-centric (refreshing!) list-blog about painters, A Thousand Living Painters, has lots of interesting work including these great paintings by Albert Zwann. His paintings feel a bit like backgrounds to Neo Rauch. He's using the same sorts of old-print colors, but really playing with architecturally crisp shapes and otherwise messy figurative spots.