Faces in the Crowd: Picturing Modern Life from Manet to Today - Softcover

Iwona Blazwick; Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8876240691 ISBN 13: 9788876240690

Publisher: Skira Editore, 2005

Synopsis

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd; petals on a wet, black bough." ― Ezra Pound
Pound's celebrated haiku powerfully evokes the situation of the individual in the metropolis: personalities suspended in a moment within the life of the city. The Whitechapel Gallery, London and Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy organized Faces in the Crowd as an exploration of this condition of modernity seen in realist art, especially art of the human face and form. The exhibition and its catalog trace a history of avant-garde figuration from a new perspective.
Taking Manet's The Masked Ball at the Opera as its starting point, the book focuses on his contemporaries such as Degas and then moves through the twentieth century to artists of today. Some artworks represent a dramatic rupture with the past proposing radical and innovative modern forms and structures. Others picture modern life or its impact on our inner selves. Others consider art as an agent for further social change. All the works include critical and bibliographical entries, plus a selection of extracts from historical documents and artists writings from the 19th-century to today. Taken together this art fully illuminates its theme in which representations of the human figure are seen as expressions of modernity.
Exhibition schedule:

The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
December 3, 2004 -- February 28, 2005
Castello di Rivoli, Turin
April 4, 2005 -- July 10, 2005

About this title

Synopsis

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; petals on a wet black bough. Ezra Pound, 1926 Pound's celebrated haiku powerfully evokes the individual immersed within the crowd, lost in a moment of stillness within the modern metropolis. Faces in the Crowd explores the condition of modernity through realist art. Taking Edouard Manet as its starting point and moving through master figures such as Umberto Boccioni, Edward Hopper, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall, this exhibition catalogue traces a history of avant-garde figuration. The great revolutions in 20th century art tend to be associated with abstraction. Yet there is a parallel history, which is equally radical. Manet's vividly realist scenarios or Jeff Wall's cinematic tableaux offer a compelling snapshot of the modern. By contrast, Edvard Munch or Francis Bacon present a tortured or exhilarated inner life. And for Alexander Rodchenko, Joseph Beuys or Chris Ofili, the figure can be a harbinger of change: symbolic, revolutionary or transgressive.

This catalogue, published in conjunction with the exhibition jointly organized by the Whitechapel Gallery in London and Castello di Rivoli in Turin, includes not only masterpieces of painting, but also sculpture, photography and the film/video stills, with each work pivotal to the story of Modernism. Structured into broadly themed sections, representations of the human figure will be seen as expressions of modernity, becoming ciphers for the experience of modern life; as images of modern life, picturing both the epic and the everyday; or as agents of social change, where avant-garde realism proposes new world orders. Texts by Iwona Blazwick, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Ester Coen, Charles Harrison, Jill Lloyd and Jeff Wall. Including images of all works exhibited with critical and bibliographical entries, plus a selection of extracts from historical documents and artists writings from the 19th century to the present.

Artists whose work is represented in this major art historical survey include: Eve Arnold, Eugene Atget, Francis Bacon, Stephan Balkenhol, Rene Burri, Umberto Boccioni, Christian Boltanski, David Bomberg, Sophie Calle, Robert Capa, James Ensor, Valie Export, George Grosz, Andreas Gursky, John Heartfield, Seydou Keita, William Kentridge, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kathe Kollwitz, Fernand Leger, Helen Levitt, Rene Magritte, Edouard Manet, Edvard Munch, Eduardo Paolozzi, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Schutte, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol and Jack B. Yeats.

About the Author

Iwona Blazwick is director of the Whitechapel Gallery. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is chief curator at Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea in Turin.

Edition details

• Publisher: Skira Editore
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 8876240691
• ISBN 13: 9788876240690
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384