Many Times

Tomorrow a new exhibition called Pompeo Batoni, 1707-1787 opens at the National Gallery, London. I am particularly interested in the London art scene during this period so this exhibition especially appealing because it deals with The Grand Tour and how it shaped British taste. In the eighteenth century it was an indispensible part of a gentleman's education to make the journey across the Alps to Italy and to admire the artistic treasures of Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples. The constant flow of aristocrats from England to Italy provided artists with an audience for Italian views, most notably amongst them being Joseph Wright of Derby, Richard Wilson and Thomas Jones. These and other artists found a drama and passion in the Italian landscape that came to symbolise a wilder, hotter, more passionate life than you could experience at home. It was the genesis of a new style: neoclassicism - a genre that believed in the moral example and aesthetic excellence of antiquity and it would, in turn, greatly influence the burgeoning market for topographical pictures of London. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the mid-eighteenth century Italianate paintings of the River Thames. One catalyst for this trend was the arrival of Canaletto in 1746 who was forced to come to London to sell his wares when his wealthy British patrons could no longer embark on The Grand Tour due to travel difficulties caused by the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-8). Mmm...I feel a PhD thesis coming on here. Anyway, more on that once I've seen the exhibition.

I hadn't intended to write about that though. What I did want to do was to quickly mention the intriguing retrospective of Juan Munoz's work at Tate Modern. Munoz died in 2001 at the age of only 48. I had seen his work before and I retain vivid memories of his amazing complex installation in the Turbine Hall called Double Bind which opened shortly before his death. The picture above is of his installation The Wasteland (1987). However, for me the pièce de résistance is in Room 10: Many Times (1999) which comprises 100 figures, identically dressed and with similar features. The handbooks says: 'They form a dense crowd, closely interacting with each other, gathered in pairs or small circles and often apparently deep in conversation.' As viewer you are completely outnumbered and whilst I had anticipated a feeling of alienation (some reviewers suggested that the figures were sharing a joke which you - the viewer - were not let in on) I felt quite the opposite. They were friendly, welcoming faces and being modelled smaller than real life there was a lilliputian quality to the whole experience. Without giving away too much, look out for some truly uncanny movement in some of the figures...just when you least expect it, just what you least expect.