Spanish Culture Minister denounces Picasso's 'cancel culture'

Spanish Culture Minister Miquel Iceta on Friday in Paris expressed his refusal to "erase" painter Pablo Picasso, as criticism of his treatment of his partners resurfaces with the 50th anniversary of his death. "I think we have to keep Picasso as a whole. It was like that, he had the life he had, but he was a genius. Without him, the art history of the twentieth century cannot be explained," the minister told reporters.

Iceta travelled to the French capital to take part in a visit with his French counterpart, Rima Abdul Malak, and French President Emmanuel Macron to the Picasso Museum.

Fifty years after his death, the painter (1881-1973) continues to fascinate the public. Museums around the world, especially in France and Spain, have programmed this year about fifty exhibitions on the native of Malaga.

But with the #MeToo movement, the image of this monument of painting has been tarnished by accusations of misogyny and violence against his former companions. Picasso is thus a target of the "cancel culture" which aims to erase from the collective memory of famous public figures because of behaviors deemed a posteriori reprehensible, especially towards women. "I am against cancel culture, which would deprive children and adults of the figure of Picasso because some aspects of his life can be controversial," said Miquel Iceta.

For the Spanish minister, his work "has not yet found an equivalent" and his career in Spain and France "has made him a global artist". "All this is Picasso and therefore we are not going to censor" the artist, he added.

Picasso's relationship with women will be the subject of an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York starting this summer. "We must stop talking about women who have gone through her life as muses. Some committed suicide, others went mad. The only one who got out of it was Françoise Gilot, the only one to have left it," said Emilie Bouvard, former curator of the Picasso Museum, interviewed in April by AFP.

A painter now based in the United States, Françoise Gilot described Picasso as a "tyrannical, superstitious and selfish being," in a bestselling book "Living with Picasso," published in 1964.