?Art is never chaste.? ? Pablo Picasso

Some theme shows in the art world seem obvious. Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers or Winslow Homer’s seascapes, for instance. That a current traveling exhibition detailing 75 years of Picasso’s erotic works – earmarked as one of this year’s hottest traveling art shows – took so long to organize is, indeed, a curiosity. If there’s anything that rivaled Picasso’s passion about art, it was his obsession with sexual impulse. “Art and sexuality are the same thing,” he said.

Apparently, the notion for a show of erotic works had been in the thoughts of Picasso himself, as well as in the plans of museum directors for more than 40 years. For reasons that are as provocative as they are elusive, the timing was right in 2001 for curators in Montreal, Paris and Barcelona to pull back the curtain on Picasso’s private fantasies.

The Spanish artist’s lifelong reveries, ruminations and invocations on the theme of sex and the sexual are the subject of “Picasso Erotique,” which began at the Jeu de Paume gallery in Paris earlier this year and can be seen through Sept. 16 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the show’s only North American engagement. The next stop is Museu Picasso in Barcelona, where Picasso first went to art school, where he had a studio at the age of 15, and where his own sexual awakening took place.

The show, which takes a minimum of two hours to see thoughtfully, includes more than 350 pieces – oils, gouaches, watercolors, drawings, etchings, sculptures, ceramics, sketchbooks and doodles. Between Picasso’s seven major relationships with women, whose influences and images all are documented in this show, and his prolific output of art, it’s a wonder he had time for anything besides sex and art. Above all, this show is a testament to a virile stamina, to the fact that Picasso was a 20th century artistic dervish.

The show follows a more-or-less chronological path, from Picasso’s early teen days in the red light district of Barcelona, to his stays in Paris and various residences in Spain and France. It moves through the blue period, the rose period, cubism, surrealism, neoclassicism. From his early days of visiting bordellos as a young teen, to his 90s when he lived with his last companion and subject Jacqueline Roque, Picasso drew sexual images of men, women and even himself. No lover, no subject, no surrender was off-limits.

The mood of the works, many of which have never before been seen in public, range from tenderness to terror, but there’s a slightly bewildering undercurrent of aggression, exploitation, objectification, and even violence. The women of his works are literally spread open, bent over, chopped up and reconfigured for the greater entertainment, glory and pleasure of – presumably – the male observer.

Surely, some will be compelled to label the show pornography. It’s true that Picasso slips and slides around that category especially in such works as “Erotic Scene,” which depicts oral sex, or any of the Minotaur series, which might be seen as celebrations of debauchery. But the porn-art argument is an old, tired one, and to linger on it too long is to miss the power of this exhibition. It’s enough to say, I think, that the experience of seeing the show – that is, of observing sex in art – in a group setting is fantastically strange. It’s not like seeing a sex show in Amsterdam or going to a strip joint in New York. Yet there is a pervasive if not perverse – and Picasso might add delightful – edginess to hovering with a group of strangers around a piece called “Vaginal Environment.”

Ultimately, the show is more accurately about an unabashed and lifelong machismo. If you have an ongoing love-hate relationship, as I do, with Picasso, then the encounter with this many demanding works will only further solidify your polarization. At the same time, you are unlikely ever to see his oeuvre in the same way again. That’s how powerful this show is. For instance, observing what he produced directly before 1907, and immediately after, wholly puts into context “Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon,” the landmark 1907 piece that gloriously shattered modern art forever. “Desmoiselles” isn’t in this show – it’s at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. But the seed of its genius and the fruits of its impact are really at the heart of “Picasso Erotique.” Anyone seriously involved with the history of visual arts cannot help being deeply affected by this illuminating sequence.

Given the frank sexual themes, there is some question among art critics as to whether this exhibition could ever be mounted in America. Even in Montreal, there’s a warning about explicit sexual content at the entrance to the show. But the answer to the question of “Could America host this steamy show?” is little more than fodder for fundamentalist arguments on this side of the border and anti-American sentiment elsewhere. My own feeling is: Of course this show could be presented in America. Perhaps not uncontroversially, but that only makes the prospect juicier from my point of view. In the end, each person will have to decide for himself or herself if, as Picasso said, “Art is never chaste.”

The truth is that “Picasso Erotique” was never offered to an American institution, according to an exhibition spokesperson. The quality of works in the show, which is made up primarily of loans from the Musee Picasso in Paris and the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, makes it difficult for the lending museums to part with such a large quantity of works for more than a year. Furthermore, many of the pieces are on paper, which means they are light-sensitive and carefully protected and controlled by the museums.

Finally, the works are not all that shocking. The erotic is an old theme in art history, and this show is ultimately about that history, about pushing against it, and about one man’s quest for pictorial results. What’s shocking – and humorous – is Picasso’s ruse. There’s no denying his place in art history, in the creation of beauty and innovation. But there is a sense that he played a game, not just with paints and brushes, not just with his paramours, but with the head of every viewer. He could be saying: Here are my fantasies, fears and follies. Or: Here are yours. But mostly he’s saying: Look at the muscularity of my art.

It’s an impressive statement.

On an emotional level, however, the experience can carry with it a feeling of violation and a countercuriosity about just what was going on in Picasso’s head and heart – if not bedroom. When I saw the show, I was traveling with three men: one heterosexual and two homosexual. One man found it titillating and endlessly interesting. Two found it boring after the first 60 pieces. I’ll leave it to you to guess who had which responses. I found the show artistically astounding and emotionally confusing because of the righteous objectification of the female body.

The actual physical space and curatorial work of the organizers at the Museum of Fine Arts are major contributors to the success of this show. At the entry, an imitation bordello room with the curtains slightly pulled back immediately establishes the viewer as voyeur. On a video screen on the back wall a very old porno film plays continuously. The mood and context are set for understanding Picasso’s early years wandering the back streets of Barcelona and eventually Paris. The exhibition spaces are divided by partitions around and through which museum-goers can peer at others seeing the show. Some parts of the installation require you to bend over and peek through brick-size holes. You are, in short, implicated.

And how else might we be expected to see art? Isn’t all art, in some way, voyeuristic? Perhaps never more so than in this unique and explicit show. In the last room, containing the works Picasso did just before dying at 91, the light fades to dark. Once again, you are forced to adjust your vision, this time as if peering into the naughtiness that Picasso took with him into the next world.

“Picasso Erotique” will be shown at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts through Sept. 16. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and until 9 p.m. Wednesday. Admission, which ranges from $3 to $15, is half-price 6:30-9 p.m. Wednesday. For information, call 1-514-285-1600. For information online, go to www.mmfa.qc.ca.