
The Language of Things
13 January – 11 March 2001
The Language of Things moved from the painterly illusionism of William Nicholson and the palpable photo-realism of the Spanish painter, Manuel Franquelo, to works which embody actual objects, others where the absence of the object is hauntingly felt, and others where the object is recreated.
In the 20th century the idea of still life extended far beyond its traditional bounds. Across a range of painting, sculpture and photography, this exhibition located certain strands of current still life practice in the context of earlier work.
Far from being about safety, as John Berger recently suggested, many of these still lifes suggested a precariousness and sense of imminence which belies the apparent neutrality of their everyday and domestic subjects.
Other artists included Hannah Collins, Tony Cragg, Tim Head, Giorgio Morandi, Ben Nicholson, Ginny Reed, William Scott, Jane Simpson, Jack Smith, Richard Wentworth and Rachel Whiteread.
The exhibition was accompanied by an illustrated catalogue and supported by The Henry Moore Foundation