Pablo Picasso—Portraits in Disguise

Walk around the 1932 bronze rooster and look at the empty space under its arched feathers. LACMA's curator Stephanie Barron reads Marie-Thérèse Walter's profile in it: high forehead, short haircut. Picasso was still married to Olga Khokhlova, so his girlfriend went into the negative space.

The display on BCAM Level 3 works this way. Lovers, friends and Picasso himself turn up as a piece of clothing, a symbol or a stock character. His favourite stand-in was the harlequin, and LACMA's 1923 Harlequin is here. A 1905 bronze jester began as the poet Max Jacob, who sang operetta in a woman's hat. Every friend group has one; Picasso cast his.

LA Insider called each likeness "a costume tried on and discarded". Bonart was harsher, saying the show exposes "the symbolic violence of the act of representation". Weeping Woman with Handkerchief hangs in the Modern Art galleries on the same floor, not here. No separate ticket is listed. LACMA is closed Wednesdays, open until 8pm Fridays, and the show closes 6 December.