Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round So Our Thoughts Can Change Direction

This muscular exhibition catalogue, edited by curators Umland and Hug, accompanies the Francis Picabia retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, offering a thorough survey of the stylistic breadth of an artist too frequently pigeonholed as a Dadaist. His colleague Marcel Duchamp described his output as “kaleidoscopic,” and Picabia’s stylistic reach traversed Pissarro-esque Impressionism, opium-induced Dada, pinup-inspired “pseudo-Nazi kitsch,” and, late in life, a series of completely abstract dot paintings. Whichever style he happened to work in, Picabia brazenly and irreverently appropriated from diverse sources ranging from Renaissance frescoes, mechanical illustrations, and even soft-core porn. Eleven essays place each successive, subversive style against the backdrop of Picabia’s personal life, helpfully decoding even his most encrypted imagery. These are punctuated by interviews with the organizers of some of Picabia’s most significant prior exhibitions. This massive book carries scholarly (and physical) weight thanks to its impressive breadth and its contributions to understanding Picabia’s art (including a reassessment of Picabia’s WWII-era erotica as perhaps ironically lampooning Nazi art). Sumptuously illustrating the first comprehensive Picabia retrospective in the United States, this is will be an indispensable source for years to come. 402 illus. (Aug.)