Hannah Gadsby on how Picasso is the Donald Trump of the art world, and why we need to rethink art galleries

In her stand-up show Nanette, Hannah Gadsby talks about artist Pablo Picasso; about how he was misogynist, abused women, and is emblematic of a problematic, romanticised mythology that has developed around the "artist-muse" relationship.

It's a barbed bit — less funny than caustic, and emblematic of a show in which she has pulled the curtain back on 10 years of comedy and self-deprecation to reveal anger and pain.

Fans of Nanette (of which there are many, thanks to five-star reviews and as evidenced by sold-out repeat seasons across Australia) may feel that Picasso is conspicuously absent in Gadsby's new ABC TV series Nakedy Nudes — as is her anger.

"I really wanted to push a lot more," says Gadsby, on the phone from Melbourne.

"I am much more diplomatic in the documentary [than in Nanette]. I really wanted to have a go at the Picassos in the world, and really go into the imbalance of power in the artist-muse relationship.

"But having said that: it's two half-hours. It had to be a generalist program."

A story about 'bums, boobs and tiny penii'…

Across the two half-hour episodes of Nakedy Nudes, Gadsby turns her longstanding interest and degree in art history to the subject of the nude, taking viewers from Paleolithic sculpture to Ancient Greece to contemporary culture, to examine the ways in which the who, what, how and why of "the nude in art" has changed.

In her words, it's "a story of how, against all odds, bums, boobs and tiny penii were transformed into civilised, serious, worthy subjects — definitely not porn — through the magic of 'art'".

To tell it, she talks to the curators of Art Gallery of New South Wales summer 2017 exhibition Nude: Art from the Tate, and Australian artists Bill Henson, Ben Quilty, Julie Rrap, Brook Andrew, Deborah Kelly and Ramesh Nithiyendran, among others.

In the first episode, she examines the origins of the "ideal" nude; in the second episode, she dissects the "male gaze" in art.

The viewer emerges with an ongoing invitation to interrogate the "art canon": described by Gadsby as "a tool to help [you] make sense of everything" and by curator Justin Paton (of the Art Gallery of NSW) as "a story that's told about which artworks are the most resonant and the most important".

As Gadsby archly points out, "Most people who decided on what the canon was … would take me, as a low-class convict lesbian, as probably not making the cut of the canon."

… told mostly by Straight White Men

Gadsby's keen sense of exclusion is one of the driving forces for Nakedy Nudes — as it was with her previous ABC series, Hannah Gadsby's Oz, which interrogated the Australian art canon and the picture of "Australian identity" it painted.

"When you don't belong, it's a very painful place," she says.

"I believe that stories are what exclude people. It's very important how we explain what's going on, but stories also have the power to exclude. And I think we have the power to change the narrative in order to include more [people], without changing the [existing] stories.

"We live in a world with so many different sorts of people who need acknowledgement."

Gadsby identifies the "gallery" as a key author of art's problematic, exclusory "story": "The conflation between galleries and museums — I think that's perhaps something that needs to be really called into question.

"It's like, 'Oh, we're protecting this art so that people can learn about it'. But the concept of what is art and what is important is heavily mediated, and a story that's told by straight white men."

She also points out that galleries and exhibitions are relatively new concepts in art: "Most art was created for ritual — whether it be church or state — so it was part of a larger cultural process.

"Then it became part of the monied or rich, [and] people lived with art. It wasn't until they started having public exhibitions in the 18th or 19th century that they started 'educating people'."

Connecting the dots in art and history

Before Nakedy Nudes and Oz, Gadsby was weaving art history references into her shows on a regular basis, and has had cult success with her comedic art lectures, which have been an annual feature at the National Gallery of Victoria for nine years, with topics including the life of the Virgin Mary, as seen through art.

While a degree in art history and curatorial studies helped, Gadsby says she also has an advantage when it comes to identifying systemic patterns.

"I've got Asperger's. I come at things from sideways," she says.

"My mind is built to see patterns. And my area of interest is art and history.

"So that's why I am able to connect the dots — and why I'm shouting and getting angry about them," she laughs.

"I'm like 'Guys! Guys! Have a look! This is terrible!"

As an example, she draws a line between two ostensibly disparate figures and eras: "This guy [Picasso] was sick in the head and he abused women — and nobody ever [mentions it]; it just gets absorbed into his story and this marvellous idea [of Picasso].

"And Donald Trump is the logical conclusion — in my head.

"Here's a guy who thinks he can just grab pussy because he can — and he can, because of celebrity.

"It's the cult of the artist, and it's the cult of the celebrity — they're the same thing."

Taking control of the narrative

In Nanette, currently on a victory lap of the world after winning Melbourne Comedy Festival's Barry Award, the Helpmann Award, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Comedy Award, Gadsby is taking control of her own narrative: wresting it from her comedic persona and the demands of the stand-up genre, and back into the "real world".

Instead of joking about her personal history, she's acknowledging the very real trauma that it contains, as a means of addressing the trauma faced by many LGBT Australians, and talking about marriage equality, #MeToo and misogyny.

While she has said Nanette is her swansong as a stand-up comic, Gadsby has a memoir out in June through Allen & Unwin, and no intention of disappearing.

One of the most interesting things about the moment we're living in, she says, is the fact that "for the first time in history, women have control over the writing and dissemination of their own stories — unmediated by men. That's never happened before — we've been cock-blocked the whole way through, since the Bible. This is an exciting moment."

Watch Hannah Gadsby's Nakedy Nudes Episode 1: Origin Of The Ideal on ABC iView now. Episode 2 airs Tuesday, March 6 at 9.30pm.