Walking around the room, I was suddenly drawn to a different kind of painting altogether. Placed on the back wall was The Cacodylic Eye. It was created in 1921 when Picabia was ill with an eye infection. As the story goes, he asked all of his Dada friends to sign and comment on the canvas. Some did, but others glued their pictures to it. At first glance, it seemed Picabia’s only contribution to the piece was the title and his own signature, both painted in an extra-large headline and byline. But he may have added the large looming eye in the lower right quadrant. Curiously, there is a contradiction in authorship with this piece. It was collectively made, but the orchestrator, Picabia, took credit. Also of importance is how Picabia presented the signatures. The piece resembled the graffiti on a bathroom wall, but when framed what was once not thought of as art was now seen as a work of art.

On the same wall as The Cacodylic Eye was a splatter of ink Picabia blasphemously named The Blessed Virgin. Another piece next to it was simply a sheet of paper with his name written across it. The title of that piece, naturally, was Francis Picabia. Walking through the exhibit I was reminded that, no matter how often his style changed, Picabia continued to play and experiment. At every turn, he fought the bourgeois concept of art. Sometimes he did it with humor, but he also brought together unexpected figures that were contradictory in color, form, or concept. And like with his mechanical works, his other periods often borrowed from popular culture. Even his earliest works, the faux-Impressionist paintings, were based on postcards, while his later Kitsch period lifted images from Hollywood.

The following morning I left my hostel in the Chelsea neighborhood and ventured through the freezing weather to the New Museum. While my main reason for visiting New York was the Picabia show, I was also there to see Raymond Pettibon’s first major survey A Pen of All Work. Pettibon is largely known as an illustrator of punk rock albums and fliers. While the show covered that period, it was broader in scope and exhibited works less familiar to punks.

I started the exhibit from the top. The first room I entered contained many of Pettibon’s political drawings. A portrait of Joseph Stalin cleverly read, “I should be president of the United States.” Another, this time of Che Guevara, was headlined, "At least I still got my own good looks.” Like Picabia, Pettibon often lifted images directly out of the mainstream. His drawing of Guevara was no different than the iconic image of Guevara. Yet, by a simple juxtaposition of words with images, Pettibon morphed the image into a provocative caricature. More than often on this floor, Pettibon’s drawings took on a less comical tone. In Untitled (To Make Him Decent), a flag was used to cover up a dead naked soldier’s genitals. The piece touched on how society’s irrational fear of sexuality can often overshadow two things that are truly indecent: war and violence.