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Picasso at the moment of creation
Picasso's Guitars at MOMA in New York
Marilyn MacGregor
"They do not seem to possess the necessary physical stamina to survive. You feel the glue will come unstuck and that you would only have to blow with your mouth to shatter them." Wyndham Lewis, after a visit to Picasso's Montparnasse studio, reels at the audacity of the fragile creations— little bits of paper, string and glue that could hardly withstand the definition of art, much less a strong wind.
"Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914," is a perfect kind of exhibit for the Museum of Modern Art: small and clearly focused, with intelligent guidance from wall labels and the audio tour. Even the dim lighting necessary to preserve these precious bits of paper enhances the sense of our private communion with a great artist's process. Leaning close to examine these ephemeral but groundbreaking works you almost feel that you too, like Wyndham Lewis, are present at the moment of creation.
And the moment was itself significant: Following the first frenzied years of Cubism, Picasso and Braque, his partner in Cubism, are moving even farther from tradition and experimenting with new materials and techniques, including collage"“ from the French coller (to glue.) By 1914 Picasso, an expatriate, will still be in his studio, but Braque will be on the battlefields of World War I, where he will be severely wounded.
Free to break rules
The fragility of life at that troubled European time lurked just outside the studio, a fact that Picasso surely must have felt as he shaped these odds and ends into new forms. Comments from contemporary observers such as Lewis, Guillaume Apollinaire and Andre Breton add a great deal to our understanding of Picasso's process and results. With no formal training in sculpture, Picasso is, to Breton's mind, freer to break rules, to go "out of his way to seek out the perishable and ephemeral."
Considering
"Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914," is a perfect kind of exhibit for the Museum of Modern Art: small and clearly focused, with intelligent guidance from wall labels and the audio tour. Even the dim lighting necessary to preserve these precious bits of paper enhances the sense of our private communion with a great artist's process. Leaning close to examine these ephemeral but groundbreaking works you almost feel that you too, like Wyndham Lewis, are present at the moment of creation.
And the moment was itself significant: Following the first frenzied years of Cubism, Picasso and Braque, his partner in Cubism, are moving even farther from tradition and experimenting with new materials and techniques, including collage"“ from the French coller (to glue.) By 1914 Picasso, an expatriate, will still be in his studio, but Braque will be on the battlefields of World War I, where he will be severely wounded.
Free to break rules
The fragility of life at that troubled European time lurked just outside the studio, a fact that Picasso surely must have felt as he shaped these odds and ends into new forms. Comments from contemporary observers such as Lewis, Guillaume Apollinaire and Andre Breton add a great deal to our understanding of Picasso's process and results. With no formal training in sculpture, Picasso is, to Breton's mind, freer to break rules, to go "out of his way to seek out the perishable and ephemeral."
Considering
What, When, Where
“Picasso: Guitars, 1912-1914.†Through June 6, 2011 at Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd St., New York. (212) 708-9400 or
www.moma.org.
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