On any given day in Milwaukee there will often be small venues that showcase fresh interpretations of great art. Such is the case in the exhibition “Picasso” currently on display at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) Art History Gallery on the UWM campus. The intimate space presents Picasso works from 1905 through 1965 in a graduate thesis curated by Daniela Martinez that continues through June 24. The intriguing exhibition explores etchings, linoleum cuts, or lithographs together with one painting and photograph, all culled from the UWM permanent collection.
While the name Picasso defines artistic genius and legendary status through the first names of Pablo and Paloma in today's society, Martinez's thesis exhibition speaks to Pablo Picasso's work as a political artist. The thesis also puts forth a perspective on Picasso that could cast another light on all Picasso's work, even if only momentarily, when viewed by someone studying this exhibition.
Several etchings come from illustrations used in a book with political overtones, Le Chef d'Oeuvre Inconnu II, and demonstrate the artist's mastery of multiple mediums. These rarely viewed works on paper reiterate Picasso's genius, and offer another vision of this monumental figure in 20th century art. However, the primary theme for the exhibition centers around an oil on canvas Still Life with Caged Owl (1947) where the graduate student Martinz expands on Picasso's owl imagery that coincides with his rather contrary pet owl named Ubu that he kept at his studio. A 1947 photograph in the exhibition documents Picasso holding the infamous bird.
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Martinez asserts that the owl might have been Picasso's subtle protest towards American capitalism and/or imperialism after World War II to influence Western Europe's economic rebuilding during the late 1940's and into the 1950's. President Truman's policy for rebuilding Europe defined in the Marshall Plan set America towards opposition of communist directed aid in Europe, especially affecting the division of Germany at the time, and inflamed the Cold War. Did Picasso symbolize America in his paintings with this bird that in the French and Spanish culture and/or language infers negative connotations?
Most interesting when viewed from the 2011 mindset, more than 60 years later, is the statement from Martinez's thesis (available at the exhibition to take home and read completely) on how Picasso may have felt about this rebuilding: “The predominant view of America as an imperial country implanted a very real fear about cultural contamination and Americanization amongst the French people. Intellectuals condemned this [American politics], believing that the growing American power would lead to the destruction of French culture.”
Seen from the present European and global economic realities facing numerous countries, especially in Europe and the United States, and the resounding claims that native cultures may be lost to Westernization, the exhibition describes a disconcerting hindsight into the devastation of war and the economic/political aftermath. What can then be said of Vietnam, Iraq and perhaps even Libya?
Wisconsin also presents a modern microcosm to the political overtones expressed subliminally through art when a painting by the Shorewood artist David Lenz was recently removed from the Governor's mansion and replaced by an eagle. Another bird Picasso unfavorably tied to the owl and represented in the artist's imagery that Martinez discusses in her thesis. Whether Martinez proves her thesis statement that the owl symbolizes anti-American sentiments or not, the exhibition certainly poses that art indeed reflects its culture, and politics remains an integral element of any culture. Which an artist then applies to a blank canvas, especially Picasso when his personal statements Martinez illuminates in her thesis are viewed more concretely.
Picasso considered himself a pacifist, and never enlisted in World War II, while several other artists during that era did enlist. He joined the French Communist Party in 1944. Martinez quotes Picasso when he says, “I don't say everything, I paint everything.” Perhaps this also collaborates with another quote from the artist in 1946 that Martinez concluded her thesis with: “It is not necessary to paint a man with a gun. An apple can be just as revolutionary.”
If one looks at the beginning of proverbial time, from that perfect harmony between God, man, woman, animal and environment created in the Garden of Eden, how true the pacifist Picasso's short statement can be intellectualized. Biting the first apple severed harmony throughout the universe. A fruit revered in paintings for its symbolism ever since the Hebrew Scriptures were written, apples were indeed just as revolutionary.
