About

Picasso was a genius.

And a giant, able to tackle all genres, all styles, all techniques.
And an ogre, who could swallow and digest the whole history of art, the Roman frescoes, Renaissance illusionism, the Greek scenery, Iberian sculpture, pre-Columbian pottery, Negro art, and also Ingres, Goya, Delacroix, Velázquez.

And a demiurge, who knew, how, from collages, cut metal sheets or painting, to raise up a whole world, and destroy some of his artworks.
A Picasso painting can never be explained by the preceding one. The artwork of the day is not the result of the previous day drawing, but the result of leap in the dark, a throw of the dice, an unexpected opening.
Among Aatchi & Aatchi nobody is called Picasso.
The productions pass from hand to hand, and under the gaze of the Other, are metamorphosed into an unexpected object. They change state, without losing sight of themselves though, and without modifying their nature*.

They reveal themselves.
Unknown to the one who designed them.

Loan.
The silence first. Then a nasal voice. Strong. Who is declaiming more than talking.
Blaise Cendrars tells how, in 1924, he cut and edited « Documentaries ». As a short film. And invented the twenty poems that made up the collection by cutting with scissors in a prose book, « Mysterious Dr. Cornelius ». Written by someone else.
Twenty poems published under his own name.

An artwork has always an author.
Unique.
And a signature. To identify and authenticate it.
When it is collective, the work has also an author. But everybody notice it less. Due to the list of names.
As if the multiplicity erased the idea of author.
As if one could not arise from the many.
Or because there is anything to see but the work. And its creation process.
No more creators starting from scratch. No more god on Earth, no more ego, no more style. And property - deprived of its usual rights.

__________________
(*) Edouard Glissant : « I may change while changing with the Other, without losing sight of myself though, and without modifying my nature ».