Description - Faces in the Crowd: Modern Figure and by Iwona Blazwick
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 Including images of all works exhibited with critical and bibliographical entries, plus a selection of extracts from historical documents and artists writings from the 19th century to the present.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.
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