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These are four sketches by Pablo Picasso placed in a washroom setting. Do these sketches still have the same value here as they do in a museum? Click on the sketches to read more about them.

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Title: 'The Kiss 1967'
Artist: Pablo Picasso 1881–1973
Medium: Graphite on paper


The kiss was one of several erotic motifs – including the embrace and the couple – that occupied Pablo Picasso during the last years of his life, and this graphite on paper drawing depicts a bearded man kissing a young woman. The unbroken lines that make up many elements of the composition – the ear of the woman and the hairline of the man, for instance – perhaps suggest the playful experiments of an experienced draughtsman, while their fluid rhythms might be seen to complement the sensuality of the subject matter.
Title: 'Weeping woman'
Artist: Pablo Picasso 1881–1973
Medium: Graphite and crayon on paper


During 1937 Picasso became obsessed with the motif of a weeping woman, which symbolised for him the anguish and devastation of the Spanish Civil War. The figure first appeared among the sketches for Guernica, his famous depiction of the German bombing raid on a Basque town. He associated her with his mistress Dora Maar, who had been instrumental in encouraging Picasso’s political awareness. He later commented: ‘For years I've painted her in torture forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me.’
Title: 'Etching 24 March 1968 II'
Artist: Pablo Picasso 1881–1973
Medium: Etching on paper


24 March 1968 II shows three female nudes and two smaller male figures. The women adopt provocative poses, and their hair and eyes are elaborately detailed. The standing nude on the left arranges her hair, as she and her kneeling companion - who stretches out her hand - observe the seated nude on the right. This seated nude is also the focus of the male figure shown in profile, so that one theme of the composition would appear to be the act of looking. Picasso contrasts the man's gaze with the dominant exchange enacted between the women. An awareness of the power over men of the naked female body is also suggested through the details of the seated nude, who tweaks her erect nipple and reveals her sexual parts while looking directly outwards to engage the artist's - and the viewer's - desire. 
Title: 'Etching 20 August 1968 I'
Artist: Pablo Picasso 1881–1973
Medium: Etching on paper


Printmaking played an important role in Picasso's art after 1963. He combined existing techniques and invented new ones in a fertile collaboration with the Crommelyncks, with whom he also made the 156  series of 1968-72. The 347 series is remarkable for its extent and for the rate of production, which averaged two prints per day. They are complex works that explore a number of Picasso's related themes, such as circuses, bullfights and the theatre, in a humorous and bawdy manner.
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One must understand that Duchamp did not think his “readymade” sculptures were aesthetically interesting at all, and thus his contribution was NOT really to elevate everyday objects into art, but to undercut art as being any better than everyday objects. In his own words, “My idea was to choose an object that wouldn’t attract me by its beauty or its ugliness. To find a point of indifference in my looking at it.” To like Duchamp’s readymades aesthetically is to miss the point. They are not art objects, but objects used in an argument against art, or at least against the beautiful in art. He claimed that the Impressionists were only about the “retinal” aspect of art, and he was reacting against them, the Fauvists, and others. Why people accept his word that the Impressionists were merely about surface beauty escapes me. Just because something has surface beauty doesn’t mean there isn’t more to it. Meanwhile, Duchamp eventually made numbered, singed editions of his readymades for sale. Apparently, while rejecting notions of intrinsic worth in art, he embraced the monetization of art objects, so long as they were his own. So, he was for people buying his own bottle rack as art, but against them buying the same one in the store and keeping it as art.

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Title: Plastic Plates
Medium: Plastic
Date: December 2021
Caption: Plastic utensils produce harmful toxic byproducts that can contaminate food when heated. The toxic byproducts, known as oligomers, are formed during plastic production and may be poisonous to humans. Colonizers introduced plastci into colonised lands to slowly posion the locals in prisons.
Title: Liquid Foundation
Medium: Glass and plastic
Date: December 2021
Caption: For skin and eye irritation tests, chemicals are rubbed onto the shaved skin or dripped into the eyes of restrained rabbits, without any pain relief.
Title: Milk carton
Medium: Paper and plastic
Date: December 2021
Caption: Milk is derived from cows. Even though the animal is alive when it is milked, the treatment of dairy cows is poor, including steroid use and forced impregnation.
Title: Fake plant
Medium: Plastic
Date: December 2021
Caption: They are made with dyes in large factories they only contribute to our growing pollution problems. Whereas, living plants are absorbed back into the Earth and play into the natural cycle of life.

*This may be a painting titled 'She found me like this' or an image of a plastic frame from IKEA.
*This web page is for anyone questioning what is art and what it can be.
*Click on the artwork/frame once you have made your decision.