ArtReview examines the enduring relevance of Francis Picabia through the exhibition "Francis Picabia: Expanding Horizons" at Hauser & Wirth in London. The show presents a five-decade, 32-work mini-retrospective of Picabia's painting and drawing, spanning from an untitled impressionist landscape (1902) to his late Dada-themed works. The article highlights Picabia's deliberately wayward, ever-changing practice, his provocative aphorisms (e.g., "Cubism is a cathedral of shit"), and his role as a precursor to appropriation art, Pop, Conceptualism, and 'bad' painting, with key series including the Espagnoles, Transparencies, and mechanomorphic images.
This article matters because it reframes Picabia—often pigeonholed as a Dadaist—as a radically contemporary figure whose skepticism toward artistic originality and stylistic consistency anticipates postmodern strategies used by artists like Sigmar Polke, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel. By staging the exhibition in a commercial gallery rather than a museum, the piece also prompts reflection on how institutional context shapes our perception of historical artists, making Picabia's iconoclastic spirit feel urgent for today's art world.