Prostitution universelle (Universal Prostitution), Francis Picabia, 1916–17
Francis Picabia, retratoFrancis PicabiaFrança, 1879–1953

Prostitution universelle (Universal Prostitution)

1916–17 · Drawing · 74.5 × 94.2 cm

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Yale University Art Gallery

New Haven, Estados Unidos

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In the 1910s, the French avant-garde artist Francis Picabia made a series of playful, enigmatic works combining machine imagery with allusions to human sexuality. As opposed to the triumphalist narratives of technological progress that were widespread in the early twentieth century, Picabia’s “erotic” machines appear in a state of whimsical dysfunction: they seem to reflect the foibles of human nature, rather than transcend them. Picabia’s images gently mocked ideologies of masculinist militarism at a moment when Europe was engulfed in the mechanized violence of the First World War. This sardonic approach to political and social currents was typical of the Dadaist spirit, with which Picabia was associated in New York, Paris, and Zürich. The words trailing across this image read, “invite . . . ignore . . . human body,” a message of failed desire and frustrated intent rather than of technological mastery.

Yale University Art Gallery

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Número de inventário
1941.635

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Fontes

Na vida de Francis Picabia

A vida inteira
  1. 1915

    The start of his “machinist” period

    From 1915 Picabia made and exhibited drawings and prints of mysterious machines and apparatuses — “mechanical portraits” inspired by Duchamp's “machine style”; the magazine 291 devoted an entire issue to him, and he met Man Ray.

  2. 1915

    En route to Cuba, he stays on in New York

    In wartime Picabia set out for Cuba to buy molasses for a friend who ran a sugar refinery, but after landing in New York in June 1915 he stayed on to work and did not return to France until the war was over. In these years drugs and alcohol undermined his health: he suffered from dropsy and tachycardia.

  3. 1915–1917

    Leading New York Dada with Duchamp

    Throughout his three years in New York Picabia mixed closely with avant-garde artists and, together with Marcel Duchamp, headed the New York section of the Dada movement.

  4. 1916

    Founds the Dada magazine 391

    In Barcelona, among a small circle of artists who had fled the war (Gleizes, Marie Laurencin, Robert and Sonia Delaunay), Picabia started his magazine 391, modelled on Stieglitz's periodical, and continued it in the United States with Duchamp's help. Other accounts say it was founded in New York and later published in Zürich and Paris until 1924.

  5. c. 1919

    Treatment in Zürich and meeting Tzara

    While seeking treatment in Zürich for depression and suicidal impulses, Picabia met Tristan Tzara, whose radical ideas thrilled him. Back in Paris with his mistress Germaine Everling, he found himself among the Dadaists — Breton, Éluard, Soupault and Aragon, who met at Certa, a Basque bar.

  6. 15 de setembro de 1919

    Son born: Vincent Martinez-Picabia

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