So much scope, but not very minty fresh

A hundred years is a long time, and one can certainly feel the weight of history at the British Art Center's (BAC) current exhibition, "The Twentieth-Century Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, and Works of Art on Paper," which showcases the museum's impressive collection. The scope of the show is enormous, covering turn-of-the-century post-impressionists to pre-war surrealists to postwar pop artists, all the way to those "young British artists" whose works recently caused such a "Sensation" at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. This exhibition simultaneously looks back at historical highlights and forward to contemporary experiments, reflecting on London as the new "hub of the art world."

KATHERINE ALDRICH/YH A smorgasbord, a cavalcade, a hodgepodge, a boulliabaise, a potpourri of the 20th century.

The entrance wall to the "Paintings & Sculptures" half of the exhibit is flanked by two large abstract compositions heavily encrusted with globs, drips, and other painterly gestures—archetypal images that characterize "modern art" (even though they were done in different time periods by different artists). Between these two giants, on the entrance wall itself, is the subdued triptych "Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes" (1976-78), by Francis Bacon. This first impression of the show sums up the exhibition's underlying message: despite the personalities, the politics, and the public's disillusionment with the art world, artists in the 20th century have done some pretty good work.

What makes this exhibition memorable is that the work itself is really on display. The curators recognize the artistic merit of the pieces and show it by letting the collection speak for itself. A good half of the placards list only the most essential data of a work: artist, title, date, medium. The viewer is allowed to interact with the art unmediated by a curator's comments. Thus, the audience is allowed to make personal judgments based only on what is there and not on the artist's intention or a critic's bias. Nor is there an inherent guided tour in the layout of the exhibit, which is basically a smorgasbord of pieces loosely grouped by theme and style. This allows the viewer to make anachronistic jumps from one movement to another, to look at only the pieces that interest him or her. The exhibition's general lack of curatorial voice is not a shortcoming, but a celebration of the collection's quality.

"Twentieth Century" offers a great selection of the old and the new, creating a balance between the historical and the innovative. Many of the works on display already have established places in art history. Henry Moore's smooth abstract sculptures and Ben Nicholson's surreal landscapes are great examples of Modernist high art in the first half of the century.

By contrast, works by contemporary artists are more puzzling. Take, for example, Damien Hirst's "landmark" installation piece "In and Out of Love," built in a two-story shop in Oxford in 1991. On one floor was a climate-controlled habitat filled with live butterflies; on the walls were large blank canvases. The other floor contained the same furniture, but here the butterflies were dead and affixed to bright monochromatic canvases. Only this "Out of Love" half was preserved, and it now occupies a room in the exhibition.

The biggest surprise of the show is the amount of wall space given to figurative (read: traditional) paintings. That a portrait was chosen as the centerpiece of the entrance wall defies the concept that modern art is abstract and esoteric, and seems to be a statement regarding the importance of "painterly" painting in the 20th century. The most memorable pieces in the show came from the "School of London," a group of postwar figurative painters including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Frank Auerbach. The latter's paintings must be seen in person—the surface is so encrusted with paint that a bas relief face actually begins to emerge. "Twentieth Century" is worth seeing, if only for Auerbach—you'll get much more than your time's worth.

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