Is Hannah Gadsby, the Comedian Behind Netflix’s Viral Standup Special, Today’s Most Vital Art Critic? At a time when the art world still hasn't quite figured out how to address icons who have done abominable things, Gadsby's special "Nanette" should be required viewing. july 16, artnet news online
Here is a female comedian performing a withering commentary on the way women have been depicted in art by old white guys, irredeemable pigs if you must know. That the entire culture has been warped by an all male religious order in the employ of a totally masculine creator of the universe is too big a chunk for her, so she castigates the artists, mostly men of their time. She's down on Picasso special for having a much younger mistress, not supposing she may have liked older men, she wasn’t asked. Let’s concede that Picasso was an overbearing egotist since it shows in his work and even made him rich and famous. He may have caused women to weep but I've never heard he refused to let anyone leave, so none of my business, his critics’ or yours.
Hannah’s not in favor of banishing him from the museums however, because ‘Cubism is important. Picasso freed us from the slavery of having to reproduce three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface.’ It’s not really technically correct since no matter how he rearranged stuff, his art was always referential, but wait a minute. Did she say ‘slavery?’ The word has a meaning and I’m not sure it applies here. Let’s face the bloody truth for a change. Freedom from ‘having to reproduce three dimensional reality on the two dimensional surface’ is really just a license to make messes, look around.
In the history of art, world-wide and all time, non-objective abstract art is destined to be seen as aberration rather than emancipation, evidence of a failure of nerve and a vast intellectual laziness brought on by the mesmerizing backbeat of pervasive commercialism, citizens climbing over each other to own a more luxurious pickup. Well it’s all over now, a new day dawns. Art has the power to heal and unify, the recently resurrected mexican muralists proved it years ago, and interpreting the three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface is the carrier for a message that resonates deep inside. Let’s grant that the personal lives of artists are note-worthy if they’re celebrities or if there's little that can be said about their art. In all other cases it isn’t really necessary to know the artist’s gender and orientation, skin tone and ethnic background, political views or domestic entanglements. Ask of art that it demands your attention and dominates the room it’s in, and that it filters the world through the artist’s eyes and onto a flat surface so that you can compare it with your own. How consenting adults behaved long ago won’t come up.
Here is a female comedian performing a withering commentary on the way women have been depicted in art by old white guys, irredeemable pigs if you must know. That the entire culture has been warped by an all male religious order in the employ of a totally masculine creator of the universe is too big a chunk for her, so she castigates the artists, mostly men of their time. She's down on Picasso special for having a much younger mistress, not supposing she may have liked older men, she wasn’t asked. Let’s concede that Picasso was an overbearing egotist since it shows in his work and even made him rich and famous. He may have caused women to weep but I've never heard he refused to let anyone leave, so none of my business, his critics’ or yours.
Hannah’s not in favor of banishing him from the museums however, because ‘Cubism is important. Picasso freed us from the slavery of having to reproduce three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface.’ It’s not really technically correct since no matter how he rearranged stuff, his art was always referential, but wait a minute. Did she say ‘slavery?’ The word has a meaning and I’m not sure it applies here. Let’s face the bloody truth for a change. Freedom from ‘having to reproduce three dimensional reality on the two dimensional surface’ is really just a license to make messes, look around.
In the history of art, world-wide and all time, non-objective abstract art is destined to be seen as aberration rather than emancipation, evidence of a failure of nerve and a vast intellectual laziness brought on by the mesmerizing backbeat of pervasive commercialism, citizens climbing over each other to own a more luxurious pickup. Well it’s all over now, a new day dawns. Art has the power to heal and unify, the recently resurrected mexican muralists proved it years ago, and interpreting the three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface is the carrier for a message that resonates deep inside. Let’s grant that the personal lives of artists are note-worthy if they’re celebrities or if there's little that can be said about their art. In all other cases it isn’t really necessary to know the artist’s gender and orientation, skin tone and ethnic background, political views or domestic entanglements. Ask of art that it demands your attention and dominates the room it’s in, and that it filters the world through the artist’s eyes and onto a flat surface so that you can compare it with your own. How consenting adults behaved long ago won’t come up.
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