--:-- Noelle King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King, and I'm here with comedian Hannah Gadsby.
--:-- Hannah Gadsby: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Noelle King: So, Hannah, you studied art history, including Picasso, and then you made a bold decision to talk about him in a comedy special.
--:-- Hannah Gadsby: Yes, that's right. I was quite angry about some things, including Picasso, and I felt like I was sick of justifying his behavior and his art. I wanted to reject that idea that artists have to be monsters or suffering.
--:-- Noelle King: You were quite angry about Picasso, and you went after him in your special, Nanette. Did you sense the conversation around Picasso was shifting, or had the conversation already shifted and you were saying what all the art people already know?
--:-- Hannah Gadsby: I don't think the conversation had shifted. I think I was part of a tidal wave of reactions, but my part got lost in the noise.
--:-- Noelle King: You're co-curating an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum that will include some of Picasso's work. Tell me about the exhibition.
--:-- Hannah Gadsby: It was put together as part of a global celebration of the 50th anniversary of his death. I thought, do you know what? I think that chat could do with an antagonistic voice and an outsider. I'm an outsider to the art world, so I don't have any problems with being rejected by them.
--:-- Noelle King: You've included a lot of feminist pieces in the exhibition. Can you tell me about that?
--:-- Hannah Gadsby: I've included a lot of feminist pieces, probably half and half Picasso and feminist pieces. There's a few nice bits from Picasso, but I've also included Picassos that are a little underwhelming and I think that's important.
--:-- Claire Diederer: I'm Claire Diederer, and I'm a writer and critic. I have a new book out called Monsters, A Fan's Dilemma.
--:-- Noelle King: Claire, you've written about the filmmaker Roman Polanski and learned a lot about his crime, and yet still you loved his work. And to me, that seemed a really interesting problem and dilemma that you had written about.
--:-- Claire Diederer: Yes, that's right. I was trying to question this idea that the greatness of the work could be ascertained by any one person or that there was an authority that could tell us what work is great enough to withstand kind of our knowledge of these bad behaviors.
--:-- Noelle King: You still like Roman Polanski's movies, despite his crimes. What else do you still engage with where you think the artist is not somebody you like or even maybe respect, but you do like the art?
--:-- Claire Diederer: I'm happy that you asked that question in the way you asked it, that you ask it in a personal way. What I'm really trying to do is say that this is a question that we each bring our biography to.
--:-- Noelle King: You've written about Picasso, Hemingway, Polanski, Woody Allen, and Carl Andre in your book. Who's in your book?
--:-- Claire Diederer: I wrote about Picasso quite a bit and I wrote about Hemingway and Polanski and Woody Allen and Carl Andre.
--:-- Noelle King: There seem to be two schools of thought on how to deal with these people and with their art. Right now, as you know, there's this ferocious debate about J.K. Rowling. I myself know people who say, I'm not going to engage with her work ever again. I'm done with Harry Potter.
--:-- Claire Diederer: I think that the desire for a universal set of standards is a very deep yearning. I think that everybody would ask this question. And I think that from our conversation, you can probably guess, my answer is no.
--:-- Noelle King: Because the problem immediately arises, who's going to set the standards?
--:-- Claire Diederer: You know, the work that's important to you might not be the work that's important to me that might not be the work that's important to someone else.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
--:-- [Discussion continues with advertisements]
--:-- Noelle King: Today's episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Michael Raphael, and hosted by Noel King.
