Thursday 15 November 2012

Famous landmark is actually drunken outburst












The city of Barcelona is filled with beautiful and unique architecture dating back thousands of years. This particular building however, is considered one of the least attractive in the city centre, and ironically it is the School of Architecture.
It was built in the 1970's and for the front of the building they wanted to place on it some artwork and so held a public competition whereby anyone can enter a design and the best one will be used on the school. The artwork that you see on the building is actually copied from a drawing done by the artist Pablo Picasso. However, Picasso had not drawn this with the intention of entering the competition, nor was it actually him who entered it. In fact, he had no recollection at all of drawing it.
The story goes that one night there was an exhibition of the new artist Joan Miro's work which was being hailed as the next big thing; Picasso did not like Miro's work and said Miro was child like and not a real artist. Picasso was jealous of the attention given to Miro, as even their mutual friends declared Miro to be good, and refused to go to the exhibition and instead spent the evening drinking in a bar and taking drugs. The mutual friends of his and Miro's came to meet him after the show to tell him what they thought, to make Picasso angry they spoke continuously about how great Miro was. Their plan worked and Picasso was furious. He threw all of the objects off his table onto the floor, grabbed a pen and told them 'you want a Miro? I'll give you a Miro!' Picasso then draws onto the tablecloth the image that is now on the buildings face, and he then stumbles out of the bar. The next day Picasso had no memory from the night before, including the picture he had drawn. The friends who had made him angry then kept the tablecloth and submitted it for consideration to be on the new school building, and it was chosen. So the artwork that is now on public display for all to see, which looks like a child could have drawn it is in fact the result of Picasso's drunken rage.

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