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Moral Authority Hannah Gadsby is Sucking on the Sackler Teat

If this doesn’t summarize the decline in American art museums over the last few years, I don’t know what does:

The show, titled "It's Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby," is set to feature nearly 100 works by women artists who, according to the museum, will examine Picasso's "complicated legacy through a critical, contemporary, and feminist lens, even as it acknowledges his work's transformative power and lasting influence." Its curators also include Catherine Morris, the Sackler Senior Curator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.

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by Anonymousreply 128June 3, 2023 10:34 PM

Dyke angry with everything men achieve, lays into men.

by Anonymousreply 1May 10, 2023 3:41 PM

I loathe this fat, unfunny cunt. Why is she still here?

by Anonymousreply 2May 10, 2023 3:42 PM

To piss off pinheads like you, I suspect.

by Anonymousreply 3May 10, 2023 3:45 PM

Will this fat cunt fuck off already?!

by Anonymousreply 4May 10, 2023 3:46 PM

Wow she looks like Rosie 2.0, except Rosie seems like more fun.

by Anonymousreply 5May 10, 2023 3:46 PM

[quote] To piss off pinheads like you, I suspect.

you must be lonely being a Hannah Gadsby fan, sweetie.

by Anonymousreply 6May 10, 2023 3:48 PM

Art has to be subsidized because artists are usually po'.

by Anonymousreply 7May 10, 2023 3:50 PM

Sure, R7, but plenty of other museums have stopped taking Sackler blood money.

by Anonymousreply 8May 10, 2023 3:52 PM

Hey datalounge, don't be picking on my favorite Big Pharma family. They have done lots of good stuff with their $$$$.

by Anonymousreply 9May 10, 2023 3:54 PM

Why is this self-identified "they/them" non-binary person speaking on women's art, women artists, and feminist issues?

Aren't you supposed to sit down and shut up on women's issues if you're not one yourself?

by Anonymousreply 10May 10, 2023 3:56 PM

I'm sorry, I don't care if you're male, female, non-binary they/them, whatever - if you can't master the use of a simple comb, how am I supposed to take you seriously?

by Anonymousreply 11May 10, 2023 3:58 PM

DL, who is this ugly fat Dyke cunt or whatever? Do we need to know her!

by Anonymousreply 12May 10, 2023 4:01 PM

[quote]“I’m doing a show at the Brooklyn Museum. There’s one Sackler on the board [trustee emerita Elizabeth A. Sackler]. We vetted this. Apparently, they’ve separated their earning streams from the problematic one."

It's not the simple. Elizabeth's dad died before Oxycotin, sure, but he is the guy who pioneered the entire scheme of marketing pharmaceuticals to consumers mixed with kickbacks to doctors that helped eventually to fuel the opioid crisis. Her money is soaked in blood.

by Anonymousreply 13May 10, 2023 4:06 PM

Once again, someone filled with undeserved self-importance has decided to loudly speak out in public.

by Anonymousreply 14May 10, 2023 4:12 PM

Who’s this dime store Rosie O’Donnell?

by Anonymousreply 15May 10, 2023 4:13 PM

[quote]Aren't you supposed to sit down and shut up on women's issues if you're not one yourself?

LOL, good one, little innocent at R10. I'll go get the popcorn now.

by Anonymousreply 16May 10, 2023 4:15 PM

She does have an actual degree in Art History, no?

by Anonymousreply 17May 10, 2023 4:16 PM

Smart Man...Marketing genius Money with "supposed Blood" on it can still buy everything and everyone.

Money talks-Bullshit walks No one cares about the dead junkies. Let's enjoy the pretty Artwork...I do.

by Anonymousreply 18May 10, 2023 4:17 PM

That’s a yes R17; art history and curatorship.

by Anonymousreply 19May 10, 2023 4:25 PM

High ranking art officials speak.

by Anonymousreply 20May 10, 2023 4:27 PM

You can get a degree in curatorship..where at dtrump u!

by Anonymousreply 21May 10, 2023 4:28 PM

"We vetted this" is giving shades of Lady Gaga's "I looked for evidence."

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by Anonymousreply 22May 10, 2023 4:29 PM

Hannah will grow up to be John Lithgow.

by Anonymousreply 23May 10, 2023 5:42 PM

Hard pass.

by Anonymousreply 24May 10, 2023 6:08 PM

This person is a modern day Jimmy Swaggart, preaching strident moralism straight out of the 17th century. No original observations or insights to be found, just smug self-satisfaction. Picasso achieved more in a few years than any of his innumerable critics will ever manage in their collective lives. How could anyone so dour, self-righteous and sexless have anything meaningful to say about Picasso or art in general?

And enough with the anti-Sackler crusades, it’s beyond tiresome. The main opioid wreaking havoc in the US for the past several years is fenantyl, with which the Sacklers have nothing to do. Did Gadsby “vet” the leadership at Netflix or other donors to Brooklyn? Anything to say about union-busting in both contexts?

by Anonymousreply 25May 10, 2023 6:24 PM

With that hair, she looks more like Joe Scarborough than Rosie O'Donnell.

by Anonymousreply 26May 10, 2023 6:28 PM

Is she another one with autism?

by Anonymousreply 27May 11, 2023 1:59 AM

She got her big panties in a twist over Dave Chappelle. She announced that she was leaving comedy. Comedy left her a long time ago. Loon.

by Anonymousreply 28May 11, 2023 2:00 AM

I prefer his work with The Decemberists.

by Anonymousreply 29May 11, 2023 2:03 AM

I worked at The Brooklyn Museum for years. They have been hemorrhaging money for a long time and can’t afford to lose Sackler. The current director did much phony hand wringing about this at the time she was brought on, but Sackler is not going anywhere. Gadsby is 100% on-brand for the museum’s staff and visitors. Barf.

by Anonymousreply 30May 11, 2023 2:48 AM

Drugs?! In the art world!?!

Well, I never!

by Anonymousreply 31May 11, 2023 2:50 AM

Maybe Nan Goldin will protest.

by Anonymousreply 32May 11, 2023 3:00 AM

This ugly bitch completely sucks. Everything she does is like being forced to sit through some stupid ass motivational speaker who comes to your school to lecture you.

by Anonymousreply 33May 11, 2023 3:42 AM

R16 Yeah! Let us girls discuss womanhood.

by Anonymousreply 34May 11, 2023 4:46 AM

This is on your reputation, Australia, as much as James Corden is on the UK. You created her.

by Anonymousreply 35May 11, 2023 5:23 AM

Dyke vs Picasso's 'problematic' treatment of women.

Don't worry luv, you're probably the one 'woman' on earth he wouldn't bone.

by Anonymousreply 36May 11, 2023 5:48 AM

[quote] Gadsby, who uses they/them pronouns, added, “I was assured that they’d separated from the opioids strain’

Mary needs to get over herself already

by Anonymousreply 37May 11, 2023 5:59 AM

Is it trying to be Stephen Fry?

by Anonymousreply 38May 11, 2023 4:16 PM

DR. Gadsby's Insta bio is simply, "Tired".

Indeed.

by Anonymousreply 39May 11, 2023 4:24 PM

[quote]Everything she does is like being forced to sit through some stupid ass motivational speaker who comes to your school to lecture you.

You don't even hear about her for months on end, you only run across her name on DL on rare occasions, so stop acting like a martyr who has been waterboarded into submission by the dread lesbians, forced to watch Hannah Gadsby under penalty of death.

I swear, half of you sound like you'd stroke out if you found yourselves in the same room as a lesbian. It's funny, but not in the way you think it is.

by Anonymousreply 40May 11, 2023 4:25 PM

She's not a lesbian though, is she? She's a queer enby so she's anti lesbian.

by Anonymousreply 41May 11, 2023 4:27 PM

Wheezing indeed!

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by Anonymousreply 42May 11, 2023 5:42 PM

I've liked her since "Nanette."

I can't help it if she's too much for you boys.

by Anonymousreply 43May 11, 2023 6:17 PM

I hope someone turns up to the opening night dressed as Dame Edna

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by Anonymousreply 44May 11, 2023 6:42 PM

We love lesbians. We hate Hannah Gadsby.

by Anonymousreply 45May 11, 2023 8:02 PM

She's on the spectrum, right?

by Anonymousreply 46May 11, 2023 8:04 PM

Yes, the spectrum of insufferable and un funny.

by Anonymousreply 47May 11, 2023 8:06 PM

Her hair lol. Hair like that is often a sign of mental illness. I once met Kristy McNichol at The Hollywood Show back in 2012 and she had crazy hair on the days her bipolar disorder flared up and nice, normal hair when she seemed psychologically balanced and sane. It might explain why so many lesbians have ugly, weird hair.

by Anonymousreply 48May 11, 2023 8:34 PM

How many more stereotypes can r48 cram into a single reply?

by Anonymousreply 49May 11, 2023 8:45 PM

Gadsby is on the autism spectrum and has always had quite an odd presentation. She can't read social cues. She identifies as a lesbian and is married to a woman. She is qualified in art history, which she tends to view through a feminist lens, as you'd expect.

That is really all you need to know. If you don't like her, don't watch her.

by Anonymousreply 50May 12, 2023 10:16 AM

I thought she identified as an enby which means she's not a lesbian because a lesbian is a woman and a woman is binary. She can't be all those things, some of them are mutually exclusive.

by Anonymousreply 51May 12, 2023 2:02 PM

"If you don't like her, don't watch her." Easier said than done R50 when Hannah Fatsby is always in the news.

by Anonymousreply 52May 12, 2023 2:15 PM

Only two R49. The first one is that lesbians have ugly, weird hair. The second is that they are often mentally ill (bipolar, autistic, crazy, depressed etc.) and that the two might be linked.

by Anonymousreply 53May 12, 2023 2:21 PM

R48 and R53? Where do you live?

In my 50+ years of experience of being an out lesbian, one of the things I can tell you that makes a lesbian stick out to me is that she always has perfect hair. She might be overweight, sloppily dressed, unattractive, etc., but she will have perfectly styled hair. You might not like her hairstyle (I have mine cut by a very good barber, BTW), but every hair on her head will be exactly where it is meant to be.

IMO, that's because it's easy to keep up a nice hairstyle, even if you're overweight, etc. It's harder to afford nice clothes (and women's styles change all the time), and harder still to find nice clothes that fit well and are flattering. When I was 190 lbs. (I lost 40 lbs. as my Covid project and have kept it off for two years so far), I had a plethora of nice jewelry, which is also a lot easier to find to fit you when you're overweight. And I spent a lot on shoes then too. You do the best you can with what you have.

Of course, you also have to consider that many lesbians actually want to look unattractive to men because no matter how bad you look, I guarantee you, some man will hit on you. Hell, a handsome Puerto Rican guy hit on me just last weekend (I had to roughly push him off me -- he was very angry), and a 70-year-old white guy who'd shown off his arm muscles to me at the gas station a few weeks ago (whatever) was following me in his car while I was walking. And I'll be 65 in a few months!

So there's that.

by Anonymousreply 54May 12, 2023 2:55 PM

Dave Chappelle: "To the transgender community, I am more than willing to give you an audience, but you will not summon me. And if you want to meet with me, I am more than willing to, but I have some conditions. First of all, you cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end. You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing, and thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby is not funny."

by Anonymousreply 55May 12, 2023 3:11 PM

God she's insufferable.

by Anonymousreply 56May 12, 2023 3:18 PM

She gives me Lens Dunham vibes

by Anonymousreply 57May 12, 2023 3:21 PM

Insufferable unfunny fat cunt.

by Anonymousreply 58May 12, 2023 3:24 PM

She exhausts me.

by Anonymousreply 59May 12, 2023 3:26 PM

Nathan Lane and Rosie O'Donnell sure had an ugly baby.

by Anonymousreply 60May 12, 2023 3:52 PM

[quote]one of the things I can tell you that makes a lesbian stick out to me is that she always has perfect hair.

I tend to think you're correct, but then how do you explain Hannah here? Do we chalk her hair up to her non-binary status?

(And I'm with R51: if non-binaries are allowed to present art through an feminist lens, why not men? If she's non-binary (and presumably has been all her life - you can't turn it on and off like a switch), she should not be speaking for women. She wants to have her cake and eat it too.)

by Anonymousreply 61May 12, 2023 4:06 PM

And you can tell she's had lots of cake R61.

by Anonymousreply 62May 12, 2023 4:10 PM

is that a he or a she currently?

was that a he or a she before?

by Anonymousreply 63May 12, 2023 4:11 PM

"Of course you have to consider that many lesbians actually want to look unattractive to men." And that's the problem with the lesbian world. The focus is on men, not on women. Do lesbians really believe that attractive women constantly get hit on by men? Most of my female friends are straight and attractive in a classy way (not in a slutty way) and on occasion they get male attention but most of the time, the men act in a gentlemanly way towards them. It's this fear of men that is destructive to the lesbian world and makes most of them unattractive (in many cases VERY unattractive), unhappy, strange, annoying and hostile.

by Anonymousreply 64May 12, 2023 4:16 PM

Hannah is an acquired taste. What I find interesting about her stand-up is that she can be goofy and profound at the same time. Not that many stand-ups can do that.

by Anonymousreply 65May 12, 2023 4:40 PM

It's a shame she can't be funny.

by Anonymousreply 66May 12, 2023 4:42 PM

[Quote]It's not the simple. Elizabeth's dad died before Oxycotin, sure, but he is the guy who pioneered the entire scheme of marketing pharmaceuticals to consumers mixed with kickbacks to doctors that helped eventually to fuel the opioid crisis. Her money is soaked in blood.

What bullshit. Doctors have received kickbacks and many other kinds of perks from phamaceutical companies from the start.

Plus what opioid crisis? That's a refug talking point. Since "the crack down" more people are dying from fentanyl overdose because they can't get pain meds for legit pain so they turn to the streets.

by Anonymousreply 67May 12, 2023 4:56 PM

^oops, wrong thread! Sorry!

by Anonymousreply 68May 12, 2023 5:03 PM

R67 hilarious 😂

by Anonymousreply 69May 12, 2023 5:07 PM

R67 think you are on the right one.

And as for the Sacklers, read Empire of Pain they were the original pharma snake oil salesmen. Started with Valium.

by Anonymousreply 70May 12, 2023 5:09 PM

Lesbian comedian

by Anonymousreply 71May 12, 2023 5:10 PM

[quote]I tend to think you're correct, but then how do you explain Hannah here? Do we chalk her hair up to her non-binary status?

R61, if I had to guess, I would say that Hannah spends hours trying to get her hair to look unkempt, just because. It's an image she's trying to project for whatever reason. Perhaps she thinks it adds to her comedic persona.

[quote]Most of my female friends are straight and attractive in a classy way (not in a slutty way) and on occasion they get male attention but most of the time, the men act in a gentlemanly way towards them.

Are you fucking kidding me, R64? Do they dress like Hillary Clinton, FFS? Or Margaret Albright? When I'm out walking picking up trash by the side of the road (I adopted a road in my neighborhood), I'm wearing a T-shirt and long shorts, and, as I said before on DL, I get hit on all the time! Just because straight men don't hit on your friends doesn't mean they don't hit on lesbians of all stripes. And I'm a 64-year-old short-haired lesbian!

When you're a woman, you can tell me all about it, Mr. Mansplainer.

by Anonymousreply 72May 12, 2023 5:13 PM

Sorry -- Madeline Albright.

by Anonymousreply 73May 12, 2023 5:14 PM

R72, you either live in a very trashy neighborhood or you're lying and think men find a fat 64-year old butch dyke attractive. But let's say you are being hit on. Then it makes no difference if you're ugly or pretty where you live therefore, why not be attractive if men are going to hit on you anyway? By choosing to be unattractive, you're giving men a lot more power. You're saying that men control your life and how you choose to dress. A woman with high self esteem takes care of her physical appearance and tells the men she's not interested in to fuck off. I know plenty of women like that. Unfortunately, lesbians have chosen victimhood instead.

by Anonymousreply 74May 12, 2023 8:25 PM

Oh, and I'm not a man. I know lesbians like yourself are OBSESSED with men but I can assure you, I have a lovely vagina between my legs.

by Anonymousreply 75May 12, 2023 8:28 PM

[quote]She's on the spectrum, right?

I guess beige is technically a color...

by Anonymousreply 76May 12, 2023 9:07 PM

I’m not sure there’s such a clear relationship between self esteem and appearance. I mean a person who thinks they are gorgeous as is won’t spend too much time getting gussied up.

by Anonymousreply 77May 12, 2023 9:27 PM

R74, now I have a fucking STRAIGHT WOMAN telling me how to be a proper lesbian???

Get thee henceforth to some mommy website (or grandma) and leave me the fuck alone, mmmkay? TIA.

by Anonymousreply 78May 12, 2023 10:05 PM

Wow -- I blocked R74 and DAMN! It doesn't know WHAT it is!

I promised myself I wouldn't block people anymore (because I want to see all the posts here) but blocking that one was a good decision.

by Anonymousreply 79May 12, 2023 10:17 PM

I'm not straight either R78. TRY AGAIN!!

by Anonymousreply 80May 13, 2023 10:36 AM

[quote] Gadsby is openly lesbian and often includes LGBTQ-related themes in their stand-up routines.[4][55] They are genderqueer[56] and use they/them pronouns.

This fucking idiot doesn’t understand that you can’t be a lesbian and be non-binary. Lesbians are WOMEN, binary, not they/them. She’s a fat ugly turd.

by Anonymousreply 81May 13, 2023 10:49 AM

r81 I totally agree with you. But sanity, logic, reason, facts, etc. do not exist for the gender cultists (very including "they/them" "non-binary" "gender is a spectrum" ppl).

And I see many "female" gender cultists (like they/them, non-binary or even he/him and of course the usual he/they, they/she, etc.) spewing the same twisted anti-women, anti-homosexuality, anti-lesbian propaganda. By claiming that lesbians = non-men loving non-men. Therefore they claim to be "not women! not she/her! don't call me those!" but also "I'm a lesbian! Lesbians don't mean women! or she/her!".

Absolutely homophobic.

by Anonymousreply 82May 13, 2023 11:06 AM

Picasso had serial relationship with women. We already knew that

Picasso treated women dismally. We already knew that.

Picasso was also a genius...a complicated man....terrible in his relationships...but an artistic genius.

African art influenced Picasso's work. He did not "culturally appropriate" African culture. That is a nonsensical notion.

Museum collections in the United States would not exist were it not for rich benefactors. Don't accept money from individuals, families, or corporations that were/are involved in egregious ventures or criminal activity. Fine.

Hannah Gadsby and her ilk are pursuing political agendas.

by Anonymousreply 83May 13, 2023 11:37 AM

Great works of art were created by insane men. Camille Paglia said that. There’s a thin line between genius and crazy. To make great works of art, to have that amount of skill and dedication, you have to have a screw loose. These are not normal people. If they were, everyone would be making masterpieces. Very few have that skill or that amount of neurosis.

by Anonymousreply 84May 13, 2023 12:13 PM

She looks at art through Marxism. Art isn’t art unless it fulfills a political agenda. Her ideology is both ignorant and dangerous.

by Anonymousreply 85May 13, 2023 12:16 PM

I’m surprised she has a degree in art history. I love art but am put off that it is completely male dominated.

by Anonymousreply 86May 13, 2023 1:15 PM

Is it, though r86? Art history, I mean.

by Anonymousreply 87May 13, 2023 1:46 PM

Gadsby, along with so many others nowadays, are obsessed with their own trauma and project it onto others both past and present.

by Anonymousreply 88May 13, 2023 1:48 PM

Lesbian

Enby

Pick one

by Anonymousreply 89May 13, 2023 2:04 PM

"genderqueer" - another meaningless term that people use to show how special they are

by Anonymousreply 90May 13, 2023 3:38 PM

Queer isn't a sexuality, it's an aesthetic popular with autistic nerds, AGPs, fujoshis, groomers, clout chasers, men who get off on harassing women, and pervy kinksters like furries and ABDLs. This is probably why "queer spaces" fit so neatly into the Geek Social Fallacies. The purpose of calling yourself queer is to emotionally blackmail other people into letting you do as you please, and to gain access to the social prestige of the gay rights movement for your own personal gain.

by Anonymousreply 91May 13, 2023 3:44 PM

Picasso is big because he has concept art to help painting respond to the technological challenge of photography. In other words the idea of "art for art's sake" is nowhere present in the western canon. There is always a theory and theories are always political. Was Picasso a "genius"?Of course not. A genius would have taken more care with color and materials. But he was extraordinarily good at publicity.

by Anonymousreply 92May 13, 2023 3:54 PM

According to an art history friend, r92, Picasso is Picasso in large part because the history of 20th century art was mainly written around MoMA's collections. (At least through the midcentury.)

by Anonymousreply 93May 13, 2023 10:25 PM

People magazine spoke to Le Cuntress.

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by Anonymousreply 94May 14, 2023 1:30 AM

God, does she get uglier by the minute?

by Anonymousreply 95May 14, 2023 1:38 AM

I hate guys like that. Reminds me of John Lithgow.

by Anonymousreply 96May 14, 2023 2:13 AM

I saw a clip of her recently as MC or something for an Australian comedy festival and I said to my partner that she sounded like she could be on hormones. I meant it as a joke but this was before I'd heard that she was calling herself a they, so there might be something to it.

by Anonymousreply 97May 14, 2023 12:15 PM

That thing is married?

by Anonymousreply 98May 14, 2023 12:16 PM

R94 written to be a hug? How about writing it to be funny, aren't you a fucking comedian? Leave the hug writing to chicken soup for the enby's soul.

by Anonymousreply 99May 14, 2023 2:19 PM

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

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by Anonymousreply 100May 14, 2023 3:01 PM

First it’s crutches, next it will be canes.

by Anonymousreply 101May 14, 2023 3:42 PM

[quote] I love art but am put off that it is completely male dominated.

You hate men THAT much? Good god.

by Anonymousreply 102May 14, 2023 4:05 PM

Crutches? Halfway there to having caneface.

by Anonymousreply 103May 14, 2023 4:05 PM

[quote] Gadsby, along with so many others nowadays, are obsessed with their own trauma and project it onto others both past and present.

“Trauma”

by Anonymousreply 104May 14, 2023 4:07 PM

What about MY trauma at having the lesbian/enby Augustus Gloop shoved in my face?

by Anonymousreply 105May 14, 2023 4:10 PM

Her stand up special Nanette got so much hype I tried to watch it and turned it off after 15 minutes. She's just not funny to me.

by Anonymousreply 106May 14, 2023 5:30 PM

She's not strident. After all she put up with Josh Thomas for a long time, and I'm afraid there are few dlers who could manage that over a multi year period.

by Anonymousreply 107May 14, 2023 5:33 PM

"Gadsby is openly lesbian".

I would never have guessed, looking at her photo.

by Anonymousreply 108May 14, 2023 5:35 PM

Picasso's dandruff had more talent than Gadsby.

by Anonymousreply 109May 14, 2023 7:19 PM

Picasso was born in 1881. Perhaps his views about women were not the same as people have in 2023? Just a thought.

by Anonymousreply 110May 14, 2023 7:20 PM

r110 plenty of men born in 1881 (and 1781 and 1681 and 1581) treated women better than Picasso did, just as, I'm sure, plenty of men born in 1981 treat women like shit. (See, for example, the book Magdalena and Balthasar: An Intimate Portrait of Life in 16th Century Europe Revealed in the Letters of a Nuremberg Husband and Wife.) People are only so captive to their epochs.

by Anonymousreply 111May 14, 2023 7:27 PM

r111 chances are most men born in 1881 had views on women that most people in 2023 do not have. And yes, most people are captive to their epochs.

by Anonymousreply 112May 14, 2023 8:57 PM

I want to set fire to Hannah if only because of their hair.

by Anonymousreply 113May 14, 2023 9:27 PM

I don't claim to understand her or find her standups particularly funny, but it's really hard to dislike her after her run on Please Like Me.

I love everything about that show. I rewatch it regularly.

Arnold is soooooo adorable. He deserved better than Josh.

by Anonymousreply 114May 18, 2023 1:48 AM

Brilliant and brutal review in the Times.

[quote]With Hannah Gadsby’s ‘It’s Pablo-matic,’ the Joke’s on the Brooklyn Museum

[quote]The Australian comedian turns curator in a show about Picasso’s complicated legacy. But it’s women artists the exhibition really shortchanges.

[quote]If you studied art history or another of the humanities in the 1990s or 2000s — say, if you are around the age of the Australian comic Hannah Gadsby, 45 — you may remember the word “problematic” from your long-ago seminar days. Back then it was a voguish noun, borrowed from French, that described the unconscious structure of an ideology or a text. Soon, though, like so many other efforts to think critically, “the problematic” got left behind in this century’s great shift from reading to scrolling. These days we encounter “problematic” exclusively as an adjective: an offhand judgment of moral disapproval, from a speaker who can’t be bothered by precision.

[quote]A whole cast of professional art workers — conservators, designers, guards, technicians — has been roped in to produce “It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby,” a small exhibition opening Friday at the Brooklyn Museum. (It is a title so silly that I cannot even type it; I am cutting and pasting.) The show, one of many worldwide timed to the 50th anniversary of the Spanish artist’s death in 1973, is essentially a light amusement following on from “Nanette,” a Netflix special from 2018. In that routine, a sort of blend of stand up and TED Talk, Gadsby riffed on having “barely graduated from an art history degree,” at the bachelor’s level, and attempted a takedown of the Spanish artist: “He’s rotten in the face cavity! I hate Picasso! I hate him!” Now this entertainer has come through the museum doors, but if you thought Gadsby had something to say about Picasso, the joke — the only good joke of the day, in fact — is on you.

[quote]Like the noun-turned-adjective “problematic,” this new exhibition backs away from close looking for the affirmative comforts of social-justice-themed pop culture. At the Brooklyn Museum you will find a few (very few) paintings by Picasso, plus two little sculptures and a selection of works on paper, suffixed with tame quips by Gadsby on adjacent labels. Around and nearby are works of art made by women, almost all made after Picasso’s death in 1973; finally, in a vestibule, clips from “Nanette” play on a loop. That’s the whole exhibition, and anyone who was expecting this to be a Netflix declension of the Degenerate Art Show, with poor patriarchal Picasso as ritualized scapegoat, can rest easy. There’s little to see. There’s no catalog to read. The ambitions here are at GIF level, though perhaps that is the point.

[quote]So far as it has an argument — a problematic — it goes like this: Pablo Picasso was an important artist. He was also something of a jerk around women. And women are more than “goddesses or doormats,” as Picasso brutally had it; women, too, have stories to tell. I wish there was more to inform you of, but that’s really about the size of it. All the feminist scholarship of the last 50 years — about repressed desire, about phallic instability, or even just about the lives of the women Picasso loved — is put to one side, in favor of what really matters: your feelings. “Admiration and anger can coexist,” a text at the show’s entrance reassures us.

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by Anonymousreply 115June 2, 2023 2:05 PM

[quote]That Picasso, probably the most written about painter in history, was both a great artist and a not-so-great guy is so far from being news as to qualify as climate. What matters is what you do with that friction, and “It’s Pablo-matic” does not do much. For a start, it doesn’t assemble many things to look at. The actual number of paintings by Picasso here is just eight. Seven were borrowed from the Musée Picasso in Paris, which has been supporting shows worldwide for this anniversary; one belongs to the Brooklyn Museum; none is first-rate. There are no other institutional loans besides a few prints brought over the river from MoMA. What you will see here by Picasso are mostly modest etchings, and even these barely display his stylistic breadth; more than two dozen sheets come from a single portfolio, the neoclassical Vollard Suite of the 1930s.

[quote]Unsigned texts in each gallery provide basic invocations of gender discrimination in art museums, or the colonial legacy of European modern art, while next to individual works Gadsby offers signed banter. These labels function a bit like bathroom graffiti, or maybe Instagram captions. Beside one classicizing print of Picasso and his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter: “I’m so virile my chest hair just exploded.” Beside a reclining nude: “Is she actually reclining? Or has she just been dropped from a great height?”

[quote]There’s a fixation, throughout, on genitals and bodily functions. Each sphincter, each phallus, is called out with adolescent excitement; with adolescent vocabulary, too. What jokes there are (“Meta? Hardly know her!”) remain juvenile enough to leave Picasso unscathed. The adults involved at the Brooklyn Museum (principally its senior curators Lisa Small and Catherine Morris, Gadsby’s collaborators here) really could have reined in this immaturity, though to their credit, they’ve at least fleshed out the show with some context on the cult of male genius or the rise of feminist art history in the 1970s.

[quote]The trouble is obvious, and entirely symptomatic of our back-to-front digital lives: For this show the reactions came first, the objects reacted to second. A show that started with pictures might make you come to wonder — following the pioneering feminist art historian Linda Nochlin — why Picasso’s paintings of women are generally lacking in desire, quite unlike the pervy paintings of Balthus, Picabia and other cancelable midcentury gents. A show properly engaged with feminism and the avant-garde might have turned to Lyubov Popova, Natalia Goncharova, Nadezhda Udaltsova or Olga Rozanova: the remarkable Soviet women artists who put Picasso’s breakdown of forms in the service of political revolution. A more serious look at reputation and male genius might have introduced a work by at least one female Cubist: perhaps Alice Bailly, or Marie Vassilieff, or Alice Halicka, or Marie Laurencin, or Jeanne Rij-Rousseau, or María Blanchard, ​ or even Australia’s own Anne Dangar.

[quote]Instead, “It’s Pablo-matic” contents itself to stir in works by women from the Brooklyn Museum collection. These seem to have been selected more or less at random, and include a lithograph by Käthe Kollwitz, a photograph by Ana Mendieta, an assemblage by Betye Saar, and Dara Birnbaum’s “Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman,” a video art classic of 1978/79 whose connection to Picasso is beyond me. (At least two paintings here, by Nina Chanel Abney and Mickalene Thomas, draw on the example of Manet, not Picasso.) The artists who made them have been reduced here, in what may be this show’s only true insult, into mere raconteurs of women’s lives. “I want my story to be heard,” reads a quotation from Gadsby in the last gallery; the same label lauds the “entirely new stories” of a new generation.

by Anonymousreply 116June 2, 2023 2:06 PM

[quote]This elevation of “stories” over art (or at least comedy) was the principal thrust of “Nanette,” a Sydney stand-up routine which became an American viral success during the last presidency, shortly after the wrongdoings of Harvey Weinstein were finally exposed. “Nanette” proposed a therapeutic purpose for culture, rejecting the “trauma” of telling jokes in favor of the three-act resolution of “stories.” It directly analogized Picasso to then-President Trump: “The greatest artist of the twentieth century. Let’s make art great again, guys.” It even averred that Picasso, and by extension all the old masters, suffered from “the mental illness of misogyny.” (Given this pathologization of Picasso, it is very intriguing that Gadsby has described the Brooklyn Museum show as their own deeply desired act of sexual violence against the man from Málaga, telling Variety: “I really, really want to stick one up him.”)

[quote]Most bizarrely, the routine rested on a condemnation of art as an elite swindle, and modernism got it particularly hard. “CUUU-bism,” went Gadsby’s mocking refrain, to reliable audience laughter. (As it is, Picasso’s own Cubist art appears at the Brooklyn Museum through a single 6-by-4.5-inch engraving.) The sarcasm, from a comedian with moderate art historical bona fides, had a purpose: It gave Gadsby’s audience permission to believe that avant-garde painting was actually a big scam. “They’re all cut from the same cloth,” Gadsby told the audience in “Nanette”: “Donald Trump, Pablo Picasso, Harvey Weinstein” — and the art you never liked in the first place could be dismissed as the flimflam of a cabal of evil men.

[quote]Not long ago, it would have been embarrassing for adults to admit that they found avant-garde painting too difficult and preferred the comforts of story time. What Gadsby did was give the audience permission — moral permission — to turn their backs on what challenged them, and to ennoble a preference for comfort and kitsch.

[quote]So who should be most brassed off by this show? Not Picasso, who gets out totally unharmed. But the women artists in the museum’s collection dragooned into this minor prank, and the generations of women and feminist art historians — Rosalind Krauss, Anne Wagner, Mary Ann Caws, hundreds more — who have devoted their careers to thinking seriously about modern art and gender. Especially at the Brooklyn Museum, whose engagement with feminist art is unique in New York, I left sad and embarrassed that this show doesn’t even try to do what it promises: put women artists on equal footing with the big guy.

[quote]“My story has value,” Gadsby said in “Nanette”; and then, “I will not allow my story to be destroyed”; and then, “Stories hold our cure.” But Howardena Pindell, on view here, is much more than a storyteller; Cindy Sherman, on view here, is much more than a storyteller. They are artists who, like Picasso before them, put ideas and images into productive tension, with no reassurance of closure or comfort. The function of a public museum (or at least it should be) is to present to all of us these women’s full aesthetic achievements; there is also room for story hour, in the children’s wing.

by Anonymousreply 117June 2, 2023 2:06 PM

Hannah Gadsby seems to exist solely to stand next to each work of art in a museum and tell you what moral sins of 2023 were committed by each artist a century ago.

"Rembrandt is considered the quintessential Dutch Master, but he also fathered illegitimate children and left them none of his wealth."

"Andy Warhol was a transformative artist in multiple mediums, but did you know a woman was once RAPED in a building he owned?"

"William Blake was a philosopher and artist whose views informed democratic revolutionaries in multiple countries, but he traded his free-love ethos for a curiosity about Christianity in later life, and is thus a sellout of the highest order!"

by Anonymousreply 118June 2, 2023 2:34 PM

I wonder when that moment is when you just accept that you're ugly and just decide to be quirky.

by Anonymousreply 119June 2, 2023 5:06 PM

R115 Read that this morning. It was tasty. Board really needs to dump Anne Pasternak.

by Anonymousreply 120June 2, 2023 5:10 PM

Bravo to the NYT for not letting the Brooklyn Museum get away with dumbing down its interpretation in the name of celebrity.

by Anonymousreply 121June 2, 2023 5:11 PM

ARTnews was just as savage:

[quote]Gadsby notes that Picasso was a “monumentally misogynistic and abusive domestic authoritarian dictator,” and that he “takes up too much space.” To further underscore the point, perhaps in homage to Hughes, Gadsby lends Picasso the nickname “PP.” You can do the work figuring out that very unsubtle pun. “Picasso is not my muse of choice,” Gadsby later says of organizing the show. “I regret this.” They should.

[quote]“Funny” is debatable, but comedy is used as a curatorial device throughout the show. Gadsby’s quotes, which are printed above more serious art historical musings, are larded with the language of Twitter. “Weird flex,” reads one appended to a Picasso print of a nude woman caressing a sculpture of a naked, chiseled man. “Don’t you hate it when you look like you belong in a Dickens novel but end up in a mosh pit at Burning Man? #MeToo,” reads another that goes with a print showing a minotaur barging into a crowded, darkened space.

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by Anonymousreply 122June 3, 2023 3:13 AM

She's the most beautiful and charismatic lesbian Drew Carey impersonator of all time!

by Anonymousreply 123June 3, 2023 3:30 AM

She’s Jeannie Darcy come to life!

by Anonymousreply 124June 3, 2023 3:57 AM

“Throughout the show, "It's Pablo-matic" pairs a smattering of Picasso pieces loosely picked (from a famously prolific oeuvre) not with his contemporaries, but with feminist works from after his death. Far from elevating these non-men, non-white, non-straight artists, "It's Pablo-matic" merely shunts them haphazardly into Picasso's shadow without so much as a glance toward justification. A curatorial note sweatily points out that none of the post-Picasso artists are necessarily influenced by him; one artist, Harmony Hammond, is even quoted saying, "I don't think about Picasso." Uh…well, fuck. What else are we left to do with this juxtaposition but marvel at the fact that Picasso and, say, an artist 100 years younger than him did different shit?”

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by Anonymousreply 125June 3, 2023 3:12 PM

Hilarious! This silly fool thought that all you need to do is moan about colonialism and sexism, and you're sure to be feted. Them has now found out that that's not actually the case.

by Anonymousreply 126June 3, 2023 3:58 PM

What does she know about art? Why is she obsessed with these images that were produced centuries ago? It’s an old tired complaint from 70’s feminists and they’ve moved on!

by Anonymousreply 127June 3, 2023 10:19 PM

A lot of post-review explaining going on:

After the publication of the negative reviews, the museum also sent out an email blast from Morris and Small, explaining why they mounted the show.

"Perhaps no artist enjoys as much global name recognition as Pablo Picasso. In the fifty years since his death in 1973, culture—and art history—have undergone sweeping changes. The way we look at Picasso has changed, too. Let’s talk about how. The past fifty years have encompassed, among many other social movements, the rise of feminism. And so, to mark this anniversary, we are exploring questions about his legacy by displaying Picasso’s art alongside works by a range of women artists.

We think it’s time to add another layer to our understanding of this towering figure of modernism. Museums are, after all, a place where the past and present meet. As curators, we believe our exhibitions should encourage and hold space for nuanced dialogues, even if they are uncomfortable.

And what better way to wade into these waters than with a bit of humor? Comedy is such a powerful tool for sparking conversation and revealing unexpected ideas. That is why we have collaborated with comedian (and, yes, famously outspoken Picasso critic) Hannah Gadsby on this exhibition. With their pointed wit and background in art history, they challenge us to look again. And look differently."

Anne Pasternak, the Brooklyn Museum’s director, wrote an op-ed for the Art Newspaper in which she further explained the show’s genesis. Noting that the point of the exhibition was not to cancel Picasso, she seemed to allude to reviews that extensively quoted—and critiqued—words from Gadsby present throughout the show.

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by Anonymousreply 128June 3, 2023 10:34 PM
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