The Women of Algiers, Pablo Picasso, 1955
Pablo Picasso’s 1955 painting, “Women of Algiers” sold at auction for $179,400,000.00—the most ever for a painting.
On NPR there was an interview with Bill Kreutzmann, drummer for the Grateful Dead.
He didn’t have anything to say about Picasso.
He was commenting on the Grateful Dead reunion concert (sans Jerry Garcia, of course) this summer in Chicago. Some tickets to the concert are being resold for over $100,000.00. “If I was Jerry right now,” Bill Kreutzmann said, “this is what Jerry would say. He’d say music isn’t worth it. There’s no band in the world that’s worth that much.”
Sums up my thoughts about a Picasso going for $179,400,000.00.
I like Picasso. He’s one of my favorites. I love his ability to see things in a new way; the bold energy he has to get it on canvas. I’m awed by his monumental output. After a century, some of his stuff still holds up for me. But, really, by 1955, as Abstract Expressionism was telling us new things, Picasso hadn’t much new to say. He was busy being Picasso. Don’t get me wrong. That was never a small thing. “Women of Algiers” is an admirable refinement of things he’d been exploring for decades. I like the painting. There’s lots to see here: the bold play of colors and patterns; references to 19th C masters as well as his own earlier styles and innovations; Picasso’s complex explorations of sexuality and so on. It’s good Modern art.
I’ve never seen the painting in person. Few of us ever will. There’s nothing like being up close and personal with a fine piece of art. (Or listening to live music, for that matter.) Yet, unless you’re a scholar or something, a good reproduction or hi-res digital representation can give you most of the information you need to appreciate it.
So, $179,400,000.00? Really?
Here’s a list the online arts magazine Hyperallergic put together of other things you could get for $180 million.
“Something else is driving those people, you know,” Bill Kreutzmann said about anyone paying $100K for a concert ticket.
$179,400,000.00 for a painting isn’t about art.
It’s about something else.
art by skip johnston 