January 25, 2010

"Woman puts the 'ass' in Picasso at Met."

Teaser on the front page at the Daily News for this article about a woman falling into a big Rose Period Picasso and ripping it.

23 comments:

Wince said...

The unidentified woman was attending an adult education class Friday afternoon when she lost her balance and stumbled into "The Actor," causing a 6-inch tear in the bottom of the canvas.

Please tell me what good has ever come from so-called adult education?

AllenS said...

Where is Youtube when you need it?

WV: triess

Unidentified woman says: "let me triess that again."

Sofa King said...

about a woman failing into a big Rose Period Picasso and ripping it.

Epic FAIL FTL!

ricpic said...

Art worshipers are aghast. Picasso's ghost, not so much.

Ann Althouse said...

LOL on "failing."

Ann Althouse said...

Fixed it though.

Tibore said...

Puts the 'ass' in Picasso, huh? Well, thank God she wasn't studying a Shitao... :-S

-------
Word Verification: equaro. Picasso, Shitao, equaro... there's a theme going here. :)

Ron said...

It just took her a Pic___o second to fall in, and she provided the "ass" as well!

Paddy O said...

Very postmodern of her.

Picasso is lifted out from the past, and in a participatory gesture is given added meaning by the observer. The adult violates the child rule of 'look, but do not touch'. She looked. She fell. She touched. Picasso is himself touched by this sin. He is violated, violated by a woman. And he cannot respond. He cannot touch back. He can not dominate. He has left his art as his voice, his echo, a testimony to greatness and yet at the same time entirely fragile--in need of the most attentive concern. The woman leaves her tear upon it.

Many now will gasp, and they will fret, over this tear of Picasso, gently mending it, scolding the woman and all women. Maybe even putting Picasso behind a thickly braided, scarlet rope. Where no more could a woman touch him in his delicate remnants.

Supposedly Great art, that last sacred, is fondled and abused. By accident, they say. By the fall.

knox said...

LOL. Poor woman. "I ruined a Picasso."

knox said...

Very postmodern of her.

LOL

Joan said...

Paddy -- whoa. Heavy.

(LOL)

ricpic said...

I like it that Paddy O dared to say something. Not sure I get what he said but I applaud the effort.

Steve M. Galbraith said...

Well, she now has a great conversation ice-breaker.

'Did you know that I once ruined a Picasso..'

Ayn Rand on first meeting William F. Buckley - 'You arrrrh much too intelligent to believe in Gott'

Paddy O said...

ricpic, the only true meaning is what you, as the reader, take from the text. Even not getting it is a profound getting of it.

As an exercise, I suggest taking the individual words, rearranging them, and in doing that draw from a deeper well of the truth which they, as symbols, represent.

Tibore said...

"ricpic, the only true meaning is what you, as the reader, take from the text. Even not getting it is a profound getting of it."

That's so Zen it's actually beyond my comprehension. :D  If you'd throw in some Dada, I might feel a little more at home. ;)

Sofa King said...

(Interior of art gallery. Two figures enter. They are both middle-aged working mothers. Each holds the hand of an unseen infant who is beneath the range of the camera.)

JANET: 'Allo, Marge!

MARGE: Oh hello, Janet, how are you love?

JANET: Fancy seeing you! How's little Ralph?

MARGE: Oh, don't ask me! He's been nothing but trouble all morning. Stop it Ralph! (she slaps at unseen infant) Stop it!

JANET: Same as my Kevin.

MARGE: Really?

JANET: Nothing but trouble ... leave it alone! He's just been in the Florentine Room and smeared tomato ketchup all over Raphael's Baby Jesus. (shouting off sharply) Put that Baroque masterpiece down!

MARGE: Well, we've just come from the Courtauld and Ralph smashed every exhibit but one in the Danish Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition.

JANET: Just like my Kevin. Show him an exhibition of early eighteenth-century Dresden Pottery and he goes berserk. No, I said no, and I meant no! (smacks unseen infant again) This morning we were viewing the early Flemish Masters of the Renaissance and Mannerist Schools, when he gets out his black aerosol and squirts Vermeer's Lady At A Window!

MARGE: Still it's not as bad as spitting is it?

JANET: (firmly) No, well Kevin knows (slaps the infant) that if he spits at a painting I'll never take him to all exhibition again.

MARGE: Ralph used to spit - he could hit a Van Gogh at thirty yards. But he knows now it's wrong - don't you Ralph? (she looks down) Ralph! Stop it Stop it Stop chewing that Turner! You are ... (she disappears from shot) You are a naughty, naughty, vicious little boy. (smack; she comes back into shot holding a copy of Turner's Fighting Temeraire in a lovely gilt frame but all tattered) Oh, look at that! The Fighting Temeraire - ruined! What shall I do?

JANET: (taking control) Now don't do a thing with it love, just put it in the bin over there.

MARGE: Really?

JANET: Yes take my word for it, Marge. Kevin's eaten most of the early nineteenth-century British landscape artists, and I've learnt not to worry. As a matter of fact, I feel a bit peckish myself. (she breaks a bit off the Turner) Yes...

(Marge also tastes a bit.)

MARGE: I never used to like Turner.

JANET: (swallowing) No ... I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.

(Cut to a book-lined study. At a desk in front of the shelves sits an art critic with a mouthful of Utrillo. SUPERIMPOSED CAPTION: 'AN ART CRITIC')

CRITIC: (taking out stringy bits as he speaks) Mmmm... (munches) Well I think Utrillo's brushwork is fantastic... (stifles burp) But he doesn't always agree with me ... (belches) Not after a Rubens, anyway ... all those cherries ... ooohh ... (suddenly looks down) Ur'gh! I've got Vermeer all down my shirt...

WIFE: (bringing in a water jug and glass on a tray and laying it on his desk) Watteau, dear?

CRITIC: What a terrible joke.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Yes, because child abuse is always good for a laugh.

Sofa King said...

Yes, because child abuse is always good for a laugh.

It's nothing to worry about. It's all part of growing up, and being British.

Steven said...

ricpic -- You forgot the scare quotes necessary around "art".

The young Picasso was a very good painter, but his composition was weak. Faced with the prospect that me might never transcend being very good to true mastery, in 1899 he ceased making art. Instead, he embarked upon a very successful career of destroying it.

He and his allies did such a good job of dynamiting fine art that today, the field can effectively be considered dead.

XWL said...

Speaking of Picasso and Ass(holes)...

The Modern Lovers, Pablo Picasso

well,
some people try to pick up girls
and get called an asshole
this never happened to pablo picasso
he could walk down your street
and girls could not resist to stare
and so pablo picasso was never called an asshole

well, the girls would turn the colour of avocado
when he would drive down thier street
in his el dorado
he could walk down your street
and girls could not resist to stare
pablo picasso never got called an asshole
not like you

alright
well he was only 5 foot 3
but girls could not resist to stare
pablo picasso never got called an asshole
not in new york

well,
??????? obnoxious been on bell bottom ??? asshole
remember the story of pablo picasso
he could walk down your street
and girls could not resist to stare
pablo picasso was never called an asshole

well,
some people try to pick up girls
and get called an asshole
this never happened to pablo picasso
he could walk down your street
and girls could not resist to stare
and so pablo picasso was never called...


(though, despite never being called an asshole, I get the sense from his bios and the bios of those in his circle, that he was an asshole, double goes for Matisse, Duchamp on the other hand, was a sweetie-pie)

Freeman Hunt said...

I love the name he gave his daughter. Paloma. I think it's beautiful.

LordSomber said...

She simply slipped on that banana peel, left by the ghost of Andy Warhol.