Francis Picabia: Picabias Frauen

"Francis Picabia: Picabias Frauen" is part of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024.

Picabia devoted just about the same energy to reanimating it as his artist friend Duchamp did to calling for the death sentence to be pronounced on the old profession (with all the consequences this had). Driven by his frustration as a former Dadaist, in 1925 Picabia lent the figures of Titian and Velázquez topicality in the shape of “monsters” whom he provocatively treated to a coat of industrial varnish. In this way, he immunized his painting (and also other “bad paintings”) against the authority of the prevailing tastes of his day. Two years later, he loosened the suffocating corset of what was considered style by presenting his “Transparencies”. The translucent superimposition of several figure outlines opens paintings pictorial space up to a musée imaginaire. An ardent Nietzschean, he also sought to salvage his métier in the extra-moral. Picabia teaches us, for example, to perceive the Queen of Heaven from Roman portal sculptures as the equivalent of a pin-up nude from a magazine. The scion of old Spanish nobles also sought to nurture his image as an artist through competition with Duchamp and with that other Spaniard in Paris, Picasso. While Duchamp celebrated his own intellectual aristocracy in the image of the impoverished high noble, Picabia gave himself the image of the nomadic playboy who anchors his yacht off the Côte d’Azur when he is not out in his sportscar. 

Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday from 11 to 18 o'clock, Saturday from 10 to 4 o'clock 

Gallery Weekend opening hours: Friday from 6 to 9 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 7 pm