Lost in translation | 13 October 2007

Any show that sets out to be definitive encourages brickbats and controversy. When Charles Baudelaire called in 1863 for a painter of modern life, he was seeking the kind of artist who would do justice to the realities of contemporary existence rather than escape them as was the habit of the French Salon painters of the time. Eventually he lit upon the elegant though minor graphic talent of Constantin Guys (1805–92), unable to appreciate the towering genius of Manet who in fact precisely exemplified the painter he was looking for. Such is the short-sightedness of even the greatest critics. Now the American director of the Hayward, Ralph Rugoff, has laid his own cards on the table in an exhibition that attempts to identify the sort of painting which he thinks best expresses modern life today. The result is an exhibition of unparalleled dullness.

In fact, Rugoff’s choice explores the past 50 years from the point of view of painting that has its origin in photography.