Travelling Art

August in Milan can be boring. For those of us who do not take the whole month off and go to Sardinia or disappear to some other, more exotic location, there is little enough to do. Even eating out can be challenging when all your favourite restaurants are shut.

So here’s a suggestion. At the Padiglione di Arte Contemporanea, there is an exhibition called “Passports” which is well worth seeing and demands at least a full morning to look at properly.

The exhibition has been organised by the British Council, which – for those of you who don’t know – is the British organisation charged with developing and maintaining cultural relations between the UK and other countries. Over the years – over the last 75 years, to be precise – the British Council has had a policy of buying works from promising young artists and, as this exhibition proves, it is a policy that has proved extremely successful. Many of these promising young artists have gone on to be international names, so the British Council finds itself in possession of a whole raft of early works by some of the world’s most famous artists. And that is the basis of the exhibition.

Each exhibit includes a note of the price that was paid, which is interesting in itself – how much would you have to pay now for an early David Hockney of Bridget Riley’s first major work in colour? But it’s not just a case of the British Council showing off how clever they were to snap up the works of young talent. There is also a “passport” with each exhibit detailing where and when these works have been shown in exhibitions across the world – a way of demonstrating the international aims of the British Council and its collection.

The curator is Michael Craig-Martin, himself one of the most celebrated of conceptual artists, and the works he has put together make the exhibition an amazing experience. There is an unbelievably moving early sculpture by Henry Moore, called Girl with Clasped Hands. There is an immensely powerful portrait by Lucian Freud of his first wife. There is a strangely symbolic piece from Gilbert and George, called Intellectual Depression which dates from 1980. And then, apart from David Hockney and Bridget Riley whom I have already mentioned, there are works by Patrick Caulfield, Antony Gormley (before he was working on the scale of The Angel of the North!), Barbara Hepworth, Graham Sutherland... There isn’t space to name them all – though I should put in a word for Damien Hirst, simply to wind up those people who get so cross about his work.

Anyway, it’s a great exhibition which manages to be interesting and educational at the same time. Whether you go in August when the city is quiet or whether you wait till September (it closes on 13^th), just don’t miss it. 

Laurence Bristow-Smith
British Consul General