Currently there is a rather large confusion occurring over a stolen artwork - Iraq claims the painting to be a valid Picasso, while the Louvre denounces the piece as a fake:
From the New York Times’ Arts Beat:
Iraqi security forces on Thursday displayed what they said was a Picasso painting, who they said had stolen the painting during the occupation of Kuwait in 1990, The Associated Press reported. The artwork, said to be called “The Naked Woman,” was taken from the Kuwait National Museum during the Iraqi invasion that preceded the first gulf war. They said the former soldier had been trying to sell the painting and that it was seized in a raid on his house in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. The painting was said to have Picasso’s signature and the stamps of the Kuwaiti museum as well as the Louvre. But a Louvre official told The A.P. that it has never had a Picasso in its collection and does not sell its works because they are government property. The Art Loss Register in London told The A.P. it had no record of any paintings missing from the Kuwait National Museum, and no record of this particular painting as missing.
2 years ago | Tags: picasso iraq art crime stolen art louvre
You’d think by 2010, we’d exhausted all the stories, exhibitions and interpretations of arguably the world’s most famous artist: Picasso. But the painter, who practically single-handedly influenced and directed modernism over a sixty year period, left us a rich ouevre to continuously pour over.
While perusing art news on MutualArt.com, I came across several recent stories regarding Picasso, including two interesting upcoming exhibitions: opening in August at the Nasher Museum at Duke University is Picasso and the Allure of Language (Aug 20 - January 2010). I remember my first exposure to linguistics and semiotics in art—it was a photography class early on in my undergraduate career, and at the time I thought the subject was a snoozer.
But the truth is, visual images and words share much in common, as they are both system of symbolism and representation. Once one realizes this fascinating relationship, one has the utmost respect for the complexities of both systems. And it also makes perfect sense why Picasso, so famous for visually deconstructing basic symbols into unrecognizable, cubist gobbledygook, would be interested in language.
The second exhibition opens at the Tate Liverpool in the summer of 2010 called Picasso: Peace and Freedom. Museum director Christoph Grunenberg notes that this exhibition attempts to un-do the stereotype that Picasso was a “playboy,” and instead focus on his lifelong humanitarian interests and peace efforts for global causes (ahem…as a Commie). This re-examination of PIcasso is all very nice, but it doesn’t actually change the fact that he was quite the philanderer. At least now we know he was a socially-conscious philanderer.
2 years ago | Tags: PIcasso modern art mutualart exhibition museum exhibition modernism
