To complement After Matisse/Picasso, P.S.1’s exhibition inspired by MoMA’s Matisse Picasso exhibition, New York-based artist Mike Bidlo creates Matisse/Picasso: A Cross Examination. In his latest experiment of contemporary re-visioning of the classics, Bidlo creates large-scale murals of Picasso’s and Matisse’s heads, appropriated from Matisse Self-Portrait (1906) and Picasso Self-Portrait (1907). The portraits will be painted directly on two adjacent walls in the corner gallery on the 3rd floor.
Mike Bidlo (b. 1953) is well known for his appropriation of paintings and sculptures by 20th century masters such as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Man Ray, Constantin Brancusi, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe, among others. He has also restaged the renowned performances of Yves Klein’s Anthropometries, Andy Warhol's Factory, and Jackson Pollock’s action painting. Bidlo’s “homages” challenge the art market’s authenticating role and question the modernist canon —which places originality and exclusivity supreme—by validating appropriation as a unique form of art making.
Mike Bidlo has shown in Zurich, Paris, Cologne, Stockholm, Rome, Los Angeles and New York, among others.
The exhibition was collectively organized by P.S.1 Staff. As part of P.S.1's Solo and Special Projects Program, this exhibition is generously supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Challenge Program, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Department of Education, and by the major sponsorship of the American Center Foundation.