LOGLINE & SYNOPSIS
NAKED PROBLEMS reveals a mutually assured seduction hiding in plain sight for over 100 years in Pablo Picasso's enigmatic, yet most influential painting, LES DEMOISELLES D'AVIGNON, & then unfolds Cubism in light of its time.
NAKED PROBLEMS sweeps through the painting's storied past to Picasso’s sole written mention of “The Demoiselles of Avignon,” in his arch 1941 play, Desire Caught By The Tail.
Time shatters as a siren's silhouette strides into the painting. Vogueing demoiselle to demoiselle, Siren flashes a cinematic desire-caught-by-the-tail.
Siren seduces you, the painting's viewer — her lovestruck beholder — to music called for in Picasso's play: Camille Saint Saëns’s spirited Dance macabre, here performed by acclaimed virtuosos Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà.
Music fades. One by one, the camera eyes each Demoiselle, while Beholder voices every boldly painted attitude, nuance & emotion. The primeval scene comes alive, including its skewed perspective & props: the reared central table with its priapic fruit & the critical never-before-recognized curtain billowed in its lower right corner.
Music cascades back in & modernism's long-surmised leap from the Demoiselles to Cubism vests a grounded logic for the very first time.
Finally, Picasso did not title his enigmatic, most influential painting — or did he? NAKED PROBLEMS wraps with one last surprise.
NAKED PROBLEMS sweeps through the painting's storied past to Picasso’s sole written mention of “The Demoiselles of Avignon,” in his arch 1941 play, Desire Caught By The Tail.
Time shatters as a siren's silhouette strides into the painting. Vogueing demoiselle to demoiselle, Siren flashes a cinematic desire-caught-by-the-tail.
Siren seduces you, the painting's viewer — her lovestruck beholder — to music called for in Picasso's play: Camille Saint Saëns’s spirited Dance macabre, here performed by acclaimed virtuosos Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà.
Music fades. One by one, the camera eyes each Demoiselle, while Beholder voices every boldly painted attitude, nuance & emotion. The primeval scene comes alive, including its skewed perspective & props: the reared central table with its priapic fruit & the critical never-before-recognized curtain billowed in its lower right corner.
Music cascades back in & modernism's long-surmised leap from the Demoiselles to Cubism vests a grounded logic for the very first time.
Finally, Picasso did not title his enigmatic, most influential painting — or did he? NAKED PROBLEMS wraps with one last surprise.
PARALLELS
Formidable critics attempt “to climb the Everest of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” — a feat characterized by Picasso biographer John Richardson. All set out to conquer “the great brothel composition of 1907” from the base camp of its first title, The Philosophical Brothel. — All, that is, but NAKED PROBLEMS...
Picasso avoided titling his artworks. His poet pals spontaneously christened his brazen new painting, The Philosophical Brothel — a studio joke to enliven their mystified private unveiling. Its chaste, unattributed lasting title, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, would not appear until the gamy tableau’s scandalous 1916 Paris début.
The Brothel & Demoiselles titles cast these five larger-than-life nudes as a group scene, tacitly setting an interpretive course (as titles often do), even as its early infamy turned to influence, & then worldwide awe.
NAKED PROBLEMS came of sculptor A. R. Kara studying the towering Demoiselles at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), plus — fortuitously — his initial ignorance of its largely speculative history. A few critiques, though, anticipated this unique film.
Parallels in art historian Leo Steinberg’s epochal 1972 “The Philosophical Brothel” are too numerous to list here. Dr. Steinberg’s, "each figure… connects individually with the viewer” verged on finally solving the painting. — NAKED PROBLEMS resolves each figure's intimate relationship with the viewer.
In John Russell's 1974 “The Meanings of Modern Art,” the author & New York Times chief art critic discerned, “seduction is, on one level, what the Demoiselles is all about: seduction of a blatant and demystified kind but seduction nonetheless.” — NAKED PROBLEMS bares this mutually assured seduction's iconic drama.
Bernice B. Rose, former director of drawings at MoMA, explores the Demoiselles & Picasso’s fascination with early cinema in “Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism,” catalog to a 2007 PaceWildenstein Gallery exhibition. An exhibition flyer by Ms. Rose sums her view: “Picasso’s Demoiselles, in turn, is conceived as a provocative examination of the female figure in movement, from point to point in time…” — NAKED PROBLEMS reveals this female's instinctual engagement, & consequently unfolds a timely logic that at last cuts to the heart of Cubism.
Had distinguished art critics & historians been unaware of the painting’s Brothel & Demoiselles titles, doubtless the unifying principle in NAKED PROBLEMS would have been recognized long ago, resolving The Demoiselles of Avignon, redefining Cubism & celebrating even more the depth, speed & wit of Picasso’s eye & hand.
Picasso avoided titling his artworks. His poet pals spontaneously christened his brazen new painting, The Philosophical Brothel — a studio joke to enliven their mystified private unveiling. Its chaste, unattributed lasting title, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, would not appear until the gamy tableau’s scandalous 1916 Paris début.
The Brothel & Demoiselles titles cast these five larger-than-life nudes as a group scene, tacitly setting an interpretive course (as titles often do), even as its early infamy turned to influence, & then worldwide awe.
NAKED PROBLEMS came of sculptor A. R. Kara studying the towering Demoiselles at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), plus — fortuitously — his initial ignorance of its largely speculative history. A few critiques, though, anticipated this unique film.
Parallels in art historian Leo Steinberg’s epochal 1972 “The Philosophical Brothel” are too numerous to list here. Dr. Steinberg’s, "each figure… connects individually with the viewer” verged on finally solving the painting. — NAKED PROBLEMS resolves each figure's intimate relationship with the viewer.
In John Russell's 1974 “The Meanings of Modern Art,” the author & New York Times chief art critic discerned, “seduction is, on one level, what the Demoiselles is all about: seduction of a blatant and demystified kind but seduction nonetheless.” — NAKED PROBLEMS bares this mutually assured seduction's iconic drama.
Bernice B. Rose, former director of drawings at MoMA, explores the Demoiselles & Picasso’s fascination with early cinema in “Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism,” catalog to a 2007 PaceWildenstein Gallery exhibition. An exhibition flyer by Ms. Rose sums her view: “Picasso’s Demoiselles, in turn, is conceived as a provocative examination of the female figure in movement, from point to point in time…” — NAKED PROBLEMS reveals this female's instinctual engagement, & consequently unfolds a timely logic that at last cuts to the heart of Cubism.
Had distinguished art critics & historians been unaware of the painting’s Brothel & Demoiselles titles, doubtless the unifying principle in NAKED PROBLEMS would have been recognized long ago, resolving The Demoiselles of Avignon, redefining Cubism & celebrating even more the depth, speed & wit of Picasso’s eye & hand.