post and original illustration by chris duffy
The Gagosian Gallery ( 522 W. 21st St.) looms large on the otherwise abandoned-looking strip of the street it occupies. It is one of the larger galleries in Chelsea and its roof has giant slits of glass that shower the interior in a glaze of pale daylight. The space houses a selected smattering of Pablo Picasso’s later work. It is the first exhibition to focus on his later works since a gathering of artworks at the Guggenheim Museum in 1984. The exhibition is called Mosqueteros and is curated by John Richardson and Dakin Hart.
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Inside the Gallery, large paintings are hung according to either their similarities in color, subject and composition or the date on which they were painted. A few paintings can be viewed in chronological order. You can see the painting Picasso created on August 14th, 1971, Personnage, a crooked figure with a simply defined face peeking from a yellow background who has gigantic block feet that jut at the corners of the canvas. To this painting’s right is hung the piece Picasso completed the following day, August 15, 1971, Au Travail, a blast of blue, gray and pink swarming around the rushed definitions of a barely suggested figure. Then you can view the painting he completed the next day, August 16, 1971, a piece called Homme that resembles the first in this threesome.
All the work within the show is rarely seen and comes from the collection of Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. Among the confection of visual treats are special ink works that reveal the Master’s playfulness with his pen and ink line. Some of the work borders on cartooning and is very different in juxtaposition with his large, visceral canvases and their thick, sweeping strokes of color. Many of the prints and ink works incorporate a diverse array of characters that reappear throughout the artwork. Characters such as musketeers, matadors and prostitutes are sprinkled throughout the pieces.
Another standout piece for me was Entriente completed on June 1, 1972. Within the canvases confines are squeezed two seemingly conjoined figures, a male and a female, bent like twisted metal in a car wreck around one another in hunks of naked pink flesh. They are engulfed by an erupting wave of blue behind them, its surface caked with splotches of layered white paint that sprout from the canvas.
Standing in the middle of the rooms and soaking in the surrounding work, one is struck by Picasso’s color sense. Each piece uses color in a unique way. Some of the work screams from the walls with its contrasting, bright hues and patterns while others may only incorporate grays and pinks.
The show is up until June 6th.
One Comment
Wow that’s an amazing drawing.