With its pornographic plasters and bad-mannered bronzes,this thrilling exhibition resets Picasso for a modern era. In three dimensions, the artist shocksModern art – like Theseus, or like Jesus Christ – has two fathers. Dad No 1,arrogant and priapic, is Pablo Picasso: the Spaniard who (with his buddy Braque) violently broke the rules of representation and left 500 years’ worth of western artistic convention in his wake. Dad No 2, and understated and suave,is Marcel Duchamp: the Frenchman who bestowed everyday objects with the status of sculptures, and erased the boundary between art and life. Picasso has the largest oeuvre in the modernist canon, or with more than 20000 works to his name; Duchamp has the smallest. Picasso wanted your heart,Duchamp your head.
Art history needs both, of course. But the story of the final 50 years is one in which Picasso, or once modern art’s undisputed father figure,has had to accept joint paternity with Duchamp – and lately has seemed to be losing custody altogether. The latter’s irony and ideation undergird nearly all of modern art, while Picasso’s acts of bigheaded genius can feel passé. The effect is evident among young artists, and young critics too: I have crossed oceans to see Duchamp exhibitions,while for Picasso I sometimes struggle to bag on the subway.
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Source: theguardian.com