Kind of serves Picasso right, doesn't it?

Not big fangirl, but, sure, Pablo Picasso was a genius. 

He was also a misogynist par excellence, a brute, a serial abuser, and a man whose philosophy included this glittering gem of a comment made to one of his many mistresses: 'Women are machines for suffering. For me, there are only two kinds of women — goddesses and doormats.' 

(It probably didn't sound any better in the original French, which was likely the language he used, as he was directing his words to Françoise Gilot, a then twenty-something French artist 40 years his junior. She had a longish relationship with the great man, became a highly regarded artist on her own, and was the mother of Paloma Picasso. She later became the wife of Jonas Salk. Some folks just lead more interesting lives than others. I'm guessing Gilot was more goddess than doormat, whatever Picasso was trying to tell her at the time.)

Anyway, Picasso's been dead for over 50 years now, but a little bit of performance-arty, don't take art all too seriously, payback recently came his way.

Here's what happened. 

Kirsha Kaechele is a curator (and an artist) at the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania, Australia. A few years ago, she mounted a women's only exhibition - women's only not in terms of what was displayed, but in terms of who could attend. The site of the exhibit was the Ladies Lounge. No Men Allowed. After a judge ruled that such an exhibit was illegally discriminatory, the curator had a toilet installed in the Ladies Lounge, turning it into a women's restroom, and thus making it off-limits to men.

Among the artworks on display were three paintings reputedly by Picasso. But there was oh, so much more going one.

The so-called Ladies Lounge offered high tea, massages and champagne served by male butlers, and was open to anyone who identified as a woman. Outlandish and absurd title cards were displayed alongside the fake paintings, antiquities and jewelry that was “quite obviously new and in some cases plastic,” she added.

The lounge had to display “the most important artworks in the world,” Kaechele wrote this week, in order for men “to feel as excluded as possible.” (Source: AP News)

Including those Picassos. Turns out they might have looked like for-real Picassos, but they were actually the for-surreal works of Kirsha Kaechele herself. She fessed up after a reporter started nosing around, and after the Picasso Administration in France, which vets the provenances of Picasso's works and manages his estate (i.e., the money, honey) got a bit curious about what was up with these works. 

This was after an Australian tribunal had ruled the museum guilty of discrimination. 

[Deputy President Richard] Grueber ruled that the man had suffered a disadvantage, in part because the artworks in the Ladies Lounge were so valuable. Kaechele had described them to the hearing as “a carefully curated selection of paintings by the world’s leading artists, including two paintings that spectacularly demonstrate Picasso’s genius.”

In ordering MONA to stop keeping men out, he:

...also lambasted a group of women who had attended in support of Kaechele wearing matching business attire and had silently crossed and uncrossed their legs in unison throughout the hearing. One woman “was pointedly reading feminist texts,” he wrote, and the group left the tribunal “in a slow march led by Ms Kaechele to the sounds of a Robert Palmer song.”

Their conduct was “inappropriate, discourteous and disrespectful, and at worst contumelious and contemptuous,” Grueber added.

Props to Grueber for that vocabulary tour de force. When was the last time you saw the word "contumelious" in use? Wow! I was only familiar with it all because of the catechism sin of contumely, generally used in the context of saying something insulting about the Catholic Church. 

Not to be stopped, Kaechele - no doormat, she - installed the toilet.

The brouhaha attracted press attention, and the attention of the Picasso administrators.  Leading to Kaechele's true confession. Fittingly, she begins her apologia with a Picasso quote. (Not the doormat/goddess one.)

… Art is a lie that makes us realise truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of [her] lies.

—Pablo Picasso

Her post is quite a ramble, but worth it, if only learn more detail abou the feminist demonstration at the tribunal:

At the tribunal hearing (read the ruling if you haven't, it’s really something), as twenty-five women moved in silent synchronicity, crossing and uncrossing their pantyhosed legs [pause], leaning forward in their navy suits [pause], peering over their tortoiseshell spectacles [pause], and applying lipstick [the finale, after two hours of durational performance], the judge asked, ‘If the room were empty, and there was nothing in there but white walls and some champagne—but the men believed it was full of precious objects, would the artwork still be relevant?’

‘Yes,’ I said. The idea is to drive men as crazy as possible.

Kaechele goes on to explain her reasoning, including her belief that the best way to annoy men, to make them feel supremely excluded would be to "display the most important artworks in the world—the very best."

Among the "'invaluable' objects," all accompanied by outrageous stories about the objects:

There are New Guinean spears (brand new but presented as antiques collected by my grandfather on Pacific expeditions with Michael Rockefeller—you know, when he was ‘eaten by cannibals’), ‘precious’ pieces of jewellery (quite obviously new and in some cases plastic, purportedly belonging to my great-grandmother), and a ‘mink rug’ made by Princess Mary’s royal furrier (in fact a low-grade polyester).

And the Picassos? They just had to be Picassos. Kaechele is an admirer of the man - "the pinnacle of modern art" - but what better person to hold in the close, closed quarters of the Ladies Lounge than a pinnacle of artword misogyny. 

Anyway, given her lack of the right kind of Picassos on hand, and the high insurance costs that would be accrued if she could get one, she decided what the hell. She produced the artworks - renderings of actual Picassos - and her manicurist's niece shellacked them. 

This mad and magical saga has changed me. I’m awed by the transformative power of art. It has deepened my connection to women and made a feminist of me. My love for women burns brighter. I started as a conceptual artist and ended up an activist. And it’s made me reflect more profoundly on gender imbalance. I always hated hardcore feminism, but voila! Everything I hate I become.

Gotta love an epiphany! 

Interestingly, the early reviews of the exhibit accepted without question that the Picassos were original, and that the other items on display were real as well, despite the cock-and-bull stories associated with them. But wouldn't we all accept what we were told was on display in a museum? Would I notice that the mink rug was made out of polyester? If you couldn't touch it, how would you know? 

On the other hand, MONA isn't exactly MOMA or the Met. It's a small museum, the brainchild of Kaechele's husband David Walsh, a "temple to secularism, rationalism, and talking crap about stuff you really don't know very much about." It's meant to be a play space, surreal, asburd, Dada-esque. 

Love it!

If I'm ever in Tasmania, MONA's on my must-see list.

And Kirsha Kaechele? Definitely goddess material! Serves Picasso right!