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2/12/2004

Faces in the Crowd

Whitechapel, London

Picturing Modern Life from Manet to Today

'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 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 exhibition will include not only masterpieces of painting, but also sculpture, photography and the moving image, 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. Other artists experiment in understanding and
furthering a modern self-consciousness in the viewer. Underpinning the whole is the relationship between the individual and society.

Artists whose work will be 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, Käthe Kollwitz, Fernand Legér, Helen Levitt, Rene Magritte, Edouard Manet, Edvard Munch, Eduardo Paolozzi, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Schütte, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol and Jack B. Yeats.

Notes for Editors

· Faces in the Crowd: Painters of Modern Life from Manet to Today is jointly curated by Iwona Blazwick, Director of the Whitechapel, and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Chief Curator at Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea in Turin.
· A catalogue will accompany the exhibition with texts by Iwona Blazwick, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Ester Coen, Charles Harrison, Jill Lloyd and Jeff Wall. Including images of all works with critical and bibliographical entries, plus a selection of extracts from historical documents and artists writings from the 19th century to the present. Printed in English and Italian with approx. 300 pages. Special exhibition price £24.95

Image: Christian Schad, Maika, 1929, oil on canvas. Private Collection, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn and DACS, London 2004. Photo: Benjamin Hasenclever, München

Whitechapel, Whitechapel High Street, London E1
Nearest tube Aldgate East
Open Tues – Sun, 11am – 6pm
Thurs until 9pm
Closed Mondays
Late night Thursdays until 9pm
Admission to Faces in the Crowd
£8.50
£4.50 concessions
£2 for 16 – 18 year olds
Free for Whitechapel Members, Patrons, Associates and under 16s

For further press information please contact
Rachel Mapplebeck on + 44 (0)20 7522 7880, 07811 456806, David Gleeson + 44 (0)20 7522 7871

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