Change the context of Picasso’s creations and they could be strange cartoon characters. 

Both Picasso and Disney were self proclaimed entertainers. 
Did he influence popular culture? Did popular culture influence him?

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Maybe the artist himself was a great trickster...Picasso's quixotry can be found in something he said to the writer Giovanni Papini in 1952: "Today, as you know, I am famous, I am rich. But when I am alone with myself, I haven't the courage to consider myself an artist in the ancient sense of the word. Great painters are people like Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, Goya. I am only a public entertainer who has understood the times and has exploited as best he could the imbecility, the vanity and the greed of his contemporaries. Mine is a bitter confession, more painful than might seem, but it has the merit of being sincere." 

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Like every performer, after the show the mask comes off and we go home. I understand his self doubt. There is nothing solid - the show is ephemeral and the value of artistic creation ultimately subjective, and subject to the audience and market. He is not alone in exploiting the vanity of his contemporaries - Hirst, Koons, Warhol... Where is the line between survival and profiteering, between making work for yourself and making work for a market..

Can we make work for a market while also critiquing it?

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