Picasso's 'Head': "It's a head, it's a head" and I Agree 100 Years Later.

Head  by C.T. Rasmuss, acrylic/found objects (2014).

What is a head?  Until I read The Watson Gordon Lecture 2008 with Neil Cox ; Picasso's 'Toys for Adults: Cubism as Surrealism, it never occurred to me to ask such a question.  This being, what is an object really?...especially one that we encounter on a constant basis, yet we're so unfamiliar and out of touch with at the same time.

"Writing about Head(shown below) in 1939, the then director of the MoMA in New York, described it as [o]ne of the most arbitrary and abstract of Picasso's cubist compositions in its remoteness of the object indicated by the title.  In saying this, Alfred Barr drew attention to the way the representation exists on the fringes of resemblance, and how strongly but awkwardly the title anchors around the representation to a certain kind of reading...Much later on in the 1960's, Pierre Daix discussed the work with Picasso.  The Dialogue went something like this:

Picasso:  'That's a head.'

Daix:  'That thing thing with the triangle?'

Picasso:  'But it's a head, it's a head.'"  

     Neil Cox (pgs. 10-11)

Head  Pablo Picasso, Papiers colles w/ black chalk, white gouache on cardboard (1913).

In reading this excellent lecture, I was able to directly relate a painting I did just last year, to Picasso's Head, and thereby received much gratification form it.  The fact that in it exists many properties that are in my work and to reassemble a such a work by such a great master like Picasso; I take great pride and it offers my artistic compass all the more validity.

Not only do I believe my 'Head' agrees with is, but I also have great comfort knowing that there is some part of the world out there that shares my thirst for discovery in a similar manner.  Here is another passage from the book that I believe wholeheartedly especially after reading it for the first time, is a great feeling as well:

"I General terms...to all historical works of art: how we see them is a negotiation between their presence, their persistence as physical objects that can be subjected to close scrutiny, and the structure of interpretation that have been developed subsequently in order to make sense of them...is never simple, since how we look, when we look at the work of art, is always structured or informed by our notions about it, notions that result from the history of previous interpretive language."

      - Neil Cox (pg. 22)

Closeup of 'Head' by C.T. Rasmuss (2014).

So I leave you with this: a closeup of my painting Head, and one last passage from the lecture on kid's toys, but first just a quick layout of what you see above: First you'll notice a round red nose, a clown might have with a light blue paint brush dividing painting into halves vertically, a place above where nose should be are two small, dark blue eyes, filled with emotion but hard to see via photo,then there is an angled foam brush intended as an eyebrow; I could go on, but I hope this passage by Baudelaire found in the lecture, that I leave you with helps; and that some day you may see it in person with this in mind(this goes for either Head )..

"The child twists and turns his toy, scratches it, shakes it, bumps it against the walls, throws it on the ground...at last he opens it up, he is stronger.  But where is the soul?  This is the beginning of melancholy and gloom."     

            -Baudelaire

Perhaps through art, it's possible to regain our innocence by throwing ourselves into something that is not meant to be thrown around like a senseless toy, but admired for its mystery now that we're adults.

    -C.T. Rasmuss