Pablo Picasso's Poetry

The Nevada Museum of Art had an exhibit last year about Picasso's ceramics, and I was amazed at how ... meh it all was. Apparently the market agrees with me, because you (yes you!) can buy a Picasso plate for just a few thousand dollars.

Artist like Picasso were great publicists. His art was innovative, but not more than other of his contemporaries. But he was really good at self-promotion. This is why so many famous artists are such ass holes. It is a biased sample. But newspapers like to write and the population likes to read about narcissists. Narcissists make a good spectacle, even if they are horrible people doing horrible things.

But Picasso was not known for his poetry, so, people just do not value it. Even that it could be as good or as bad as his paintings.

BRIAN BLESSED has a great story about the time he met Pablo Picasso. It starts at 22:35 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH4cWoetw4s

One of Picasso's acquaintances said that he would suck people's energy. When you hung out with him, you'd leave his presence feeling emotionally drained and frazzled. And the more Picasso drained you, the more enlarged he himself seemed to feel. It was like he stole people's energy and used it as fuel.

I heard that anecdote ten years ago and can never get it out of my mind.

Some of his poetry makes sense if you know what his personal life was like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso#Personal_life