Vintage start to the year

Martin Gaylord believes that 2001 will be a good year for exhibitions

T

he year 2000 was an odd one in at least one way — apart, that is, from numerologically, millenarianally, hype-wise and so on. Almost all the art world excitement came from buildings, not shows. Tate Modern, the British Museum Great Court and the rest of the cascade of new galleries, refurbishments and extensions were completely successful as dramatic openings, whatever one thinks of them as architecture or as places to show art.

The millennium shows, on the other hand — with the occasional honourable exception — were a disappointing bunch, not just in this country, but worldwide. The coming year should bring a return to business as usual. The emphasis will be on exhibitions, and it looks as though there are some splendid ones coming up.

The Royal Academy was not alone in having a rather rum millennium year: virtually every exhibition fixated on the date turned out strange. Art at the Crossroads in the spring was peculiar but interesting, Apocalypse was just odd. This month, however, should see a dramatic return to form. The Genius of Rome 1592-1623 (20 January-16 April) looks as if it will be a truly splendid Old Master show — one to put beside the stunning surveys of Venetian and Neapolitan art that the Academy put on in the Eighties. In starring role will be great and gory canvases by, among others, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and Rubens, adding up, quite possibly, to the show of the year. That is followed by Botticelli: The Drawings for Dante 's Divine Comedy in the Sackler Galleries at the RA (17 March-10 June), another absolute treat of an exhibition, containing delicately drawn scenes of infernal punishment that make the Chapman Brothers seem a little tame.

Later on there will be Ingres to Matisse: The Triumph of French Painting (30 June-23 September), a mixed bag of pictures on an outing from Baltimore that might be worthwhile; a major retrospective of a major living painter, Frank Auerbach; and what may well be another Old Master stunner in Rembrandt's Women (22 September-16 December). All in all, a year that should demonstrate how much the London exhibition scene owes to the RA and its exhibitions secretary, Norman Rosenthal.

Still in Old Master territory, the immediate future also looks promising at the National Gallery. There things kick off with Spirit of an Age: 19th Century Paintings from the Nationalgalerie, Berlin (17 March-13 May). This is another assortment of pictures released from their normal home, but an extremely interesting one, since it contains many masterpieces of German

romantic and realist art, two categories of painting which it is otherwise almost impossible to see in this country. Bleakly beautiful Caspar David Friedrichs are included. The Sainsbury Wing exhibitions on Trafalgar Square continue strongly with Vermeer and the Delft School (20 June-16 September) and Pisanello (24 October-13 January 2002), both of which look like winners.

Meanwhile, in the deepest recesses of South London, Dulwich Picture Gallery is mounting Murillo: Scenes of Childhood (14 February-13 May), a show devoted to a painter who remains deeply and unjustly unfashionable: he's sugary, but also masterlyUnless they take the opportunity to clean all the pictures and ruin them, this should certainly merit an expedition to Dulwich.

Over at Tate Inc., things do not look so hot. Nothing much happened along the riverbank last year. exhibition-wise — though, of course, a colossal amount other

wise — except for a commendable but overwhelming William Blake compendium. This time Tate Britain leads off with Stanley Spencer (22 March-24 June), a big show devoted to an extremely curious and possibly over-exposed artist. Spencer produced a handful of great paintings of the 20th century, but he could also go on a bit, on canvas as in life, in garrulous and tedious fashion. It will be interesting to see what the selectors make of him. More bankable will be Michael Andrews (19 July-7 October), a retrospective of an artist about whom we have heard and seen too little. Exposed: The Victorian Nude (25 October-20 January 2002) will necessarily contain a queasy mixture of prudery and soft core, so may well turn out to be popular.

Over at the mighty Tate Modern there will be Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis (1 February-29 April), which sounds suspiciously like the last of the millennium blockbusters. It will look at nine cities in nine decades, some of which we already know a lot about (Cubist Paris), and some of which — speaking personally — absolutely nothing (Rio de Janeiro 1955-69). My fear is that there will not be enough space to go into anything properly, and that the selection will prove an awkward mixture of the obvious and the arbitrary — why New York in the Seventies, rather than the Forties. Fifties or Sixties?

— but, of course, the proof of the pudding will be in the looking.

More interesting, to my mind, should be Tate Modern's two shows devoted to 20thcentury Italian art. The Bolognese still-life specialist Giorgio Morandi (22 May-12 August) spent a lifetime painting different permutations of bottles, vases and jugs, a sort of minimalism avant la lettre. The exponents of Arte Povera (1 June-19 August), by contrast, made art out of things such as real bottles, and other oddments including sacking, coal and live fauna — more, in other words, like Brit art avant la lettre.

Under current management the Hayward has decided to confine itself to the art of the last 50 years, but has also decided to break its own rule for the double bill Brassal: The Soul of Paris and Goya: Drawings from his Private Albums (both 22 February-13 May). One can see why, since this is an extremely winning combination: darkly evocative photographs of Paris in the Thirties twinned with some of the darkest and most sardonic of Old Master drawings.

Later on the Hayward features a retrospective of Malcolm Morley (15 June-27 August), a major and senior English painter who is less well known here than he should be because he has spent his entire career in America. Japanese Contemporary Art (October to December, dates to be confirmed) is also intriguing since Japan is the one place out of Europe and America that consistently produces exciting modern art.

At the British Museum Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth (12 April-26 August) should be good box-office and might be interesting, though whatever her other charms the seductress of the Nile did not live in a golden era of Egyptian art.

Up in Edinburgh, they will have first look at Rembrandt's Women (National Gallery of Scotland 8 June-2 September), and Rachel Whiteread (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, dates to be confirmed), whose elegant explorations of inner space travel up from the Serpentine (20 June-5 August). All in all, after the exhaustion and longucurs of the millennium, it looks like a vintage start to the new year.