Objects of desire

Objects of Desire : The Modern Still Life is an incisive exploration of the still life genre as artists have rediscovered and reshaped it in the twentieth century.

The innovative purpose of so much of the art of these years has led to a sense of the period as quite hostile to older aesthetic conventions, many of which were widely attacked and abandoned; yet from the century's first decade to the present day, from Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse through to Cindy Sherman and Charles Ray, artists of many schools have made of the still life a vital opportunity for invention. In an astute and elegant essay, Margit Rowell, Chief Curator of Drawings at The Museum of Modern Art, explains the specific qualities that have made the genre so attractive to artists, and so enduring.

Questioning the common perception of the still life as a minor form, a perception that has haunted it over its roughly 400-year history, Rowell shows that still life paintings and sculptures offer a unique index not only of their makers' interests and formal concerns, but of their times.

Objects of Desire: The Modern Still Life is published to accompany the exhibition of the same name at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in the spring of 1997. Tracing the still life through styles and periods from the beginning of the century to its end, the book includes a lavish plate section that makes its own eloquent argument for the genre's fascination and vitality.