As you’ve probably heard, a big Picasso show opened this month at the Art Institute, celebrating the “special century-long relationship” between the “preeminent artist of the 20th century” (as the catalog puts it) and our town. “Picasso and Chicago” showcases about 200 of the 400 works owned by the Art Institute, and 50 more from other local collections, and there are related “Picasso Effect” mini exhibits throughout the museum, along with lectures, music and dance performances, and film.
• was the site of Picasso’s first American solo show in a noncommercial setting (a 1923 exhibit of drawings hosted by the Arts Club).
New Yorker critic Adam Gopnik, who wrote an essay titled “Picasso not in America” for the exhibit catalog, finessed this detail nicely in a lecture he gave at the Art Institute last week. He simply substituted “America” for “Chicago” and forged ahead, in spite of the fact that Picasso was never in America either. The artist had an imaginary America in his head, Gopnik said (skyscrapers, cinema, capitalism), and America had an idea of him (artist as genius, lionized in the press).
“Picasso and Chicago”; “They Seek a City: Chicago and the Art of Migration, 1910-1950” Through May 12; March 3 through June 2, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan, 312-443-3600, artinstituteofchicago.org.
Through May 12; March 3 through June 2, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan, 312-443-3600, artinstituteofchicago.org.
