ORLAN pays tribute to women in the shadow of Picasso

How to show the work of one of the most famous and revered French artists in the world, while alerting to the excesses of the man and his misogyny?

It is on this subject that the Picasso museum has tackled, and its new president, Cécile Debray, who has invited the feminist artist ORLAN.

The Crying Women Are Angry

is a hanging of 12 collages by ORLAN, which takes up a series of paintings and drawings by Picasso dating from the end of the 1930s, representing tearful women.

On these weeping women, allegories of pain and symbols of the Spanish Civil War, ORLAN has grafted cut-out photos of her screaming mouth and bulging eyes.

In this way, ORLAN identifies with Picasso's companions who served as a model – Dora Maar and Jacqueline Roch in this case, for the paintings that inspired her – and pays homage to them.

“First he rapes the woman, then we work”

"This is the start of a series that questions the status of women in the shadows: models, inspirations, muses, who have given a lot for the notoriety of our great masters", explains ORLAN to

.

Given, the word is weak, when it comes to Picasso.

The artist is today at the center of a controversy for having destroyed many of his companions.

Two committed suicide after his death.

One said “first he rapes the woman, then we work”.

Another was locked.

This violence is also explicitly represented on canvas in the figure of the Minotaur, a bull that throws itself on women, which can be found in many of his paintings.

All things summarized in an episode of Julie Beauzac's podcast,

, which has been listened to more than 250,000 times.

Crying Women Are Angry

highlights the suffering endured by Dora Maar and Jacqueline Roch, while sublimating these women with dazzling pop colors.

“I identify with these women, I put myself in their place, in their tears to scream with them, said ORLAN

, just before shouting for real, in the showroom where we interview him.

These portraits speak of all the women who suffer and are in the process of waking up, moving from object to subject, and moving towards the active part of themselves.

Towards their emancipations.

»

Reading of our time

However, there was no question for ORLAN of not exhibiting Picasso, or of diminishing its scope.

“He's a breathtaking, brilliant artist, who has renewed himself all the time.

An example of freedom and invention, says ORLAN, mentioning the painting

.

This is the first work that touched me.

It's amazing how much he identified with this woman who couldn't take it anymore and her misery.

» For ORLAN, « we can make Picasso's work a reading of our time without ignoring some of his attitudes, which would be suspect.

»

“Picasso was born in the south of Spain, at the end of the 19th century, in a very patriarchal society, abounds Cécile Debray, known in particular for having been curator of the exhibition elle@centrepompidou.

The current debates around Picasso and women contain correct elements but also many false approximations”, specifies the president of the Picasso museum, who believes that recent criticisms “sometimes fall into the error of anachronism”.

Deconstruct Picasso

With

, Cécile Debray nevertheless assumes to question Picasso, in a post #MeToo context which has also turned the art world upside down: "I want the museum, in the form of dialogue and he study, by providing nuance, welcomes the broad question of the current reception of Picasso's work and addresses that of the making of the "Picasso" myth, even if it means deconstructing it", she says.

In addition to #MeToo, the hanging of ORLAN and the work of Picasso resonate with another topicality, that of the war in Ukraine.

A theme – that of war – that the contemporary artist has already tackled many times, notably in

, which has been circulating on social networks since the conflict.

The painting takes up that of Gustave Courbet,

, which showed a woman's sex surrounded by a gilded frame.

ORLAN used the same frame but this time we see an erect male, and the title, quite explicit, which denounces machismo and its consequences, war.

The Origin of the World, Courbet, 1866 vs.

The origin of war, Orlan, 1989 #UkraineRussiaConflict #Guerra #UkraineWar #Ucraina pic.twitter.com/wZQJhWDfkP

— carolina perazzi (@caroperazzi) March 8, 2022

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An explosive, direct work, in the form of a snub, which sums up ORLAN well.

Moreover, if you were wondering why his name is written in capitals in this article, here is the reason, given in the brochure that accompanies the exhibition: "My name is written each letter in capitals, because I don't want not that they make me return to the ranks.

I don't want to be put in line."

What make women want to stop, again and again, to justify themselves to exist.

• ORLAN, Crying

  Women Are Angry

  .

  At the Picasso Museum, 5 Rue de Thorigny, Paris 3rd.

  Until September 4.

• ORLAN is also in Toulouse: “Manifeste ORLAN.

  Bodies and Sculptures”.

  Until August 28.

Culture

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Paris

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• Exposure

• Museum

• Picasso Museum

• picasso

• Paris

• Ile-de-France

• MeToo

• Feminism