"the apparition of these faces in the crowd;petals on a wet, black bough."ezra pound’s celebrated haiku gives a powerful evocation of the individual immersed within the crowd, of a moment of stillness in the bustle of the modern metropolis. it has provided the title for an exhibition that explores the condition of modernity through figurative art. taking edouard manet as its starting point and moving through the work of major painters and sculptors such as ensor,boccioni, duchamp, kollwitz, kirchner,beckmann, magritte, picasso, hopper,warhol hamilton, pistoletto, richter,acconci, sherman, scheitte, ofili and kentridge, as well as photographers such as atget, brassay, evans, levitt, arnold,weegee, giacomeui, goldin and ke/ta, faces in the crowd traces a history of avant-garde figuration from the 1870s to today through the works of one hundred artists. the great revolutions in twentieth century art tend to be associated with abstraction. yet there is a parauel history, which is equally radical manet’s vividly realist scenarios or jeff wa/vs cinematic tableaux offer a compelling pictorial illusion of the modern.by contrast, edvard munch or francis bacon present a tortured or exhilarated inner life.for alexandr rodchenko, the figure can be an agent of social change, revolutionary,transgressive or symbolic. this catalogue accompanies the exhibition organised by the whitechapel gallery and the castello di rivoli museum of contemporary art. with new essays by iwona blazwick and carolyn 　　christov-bakargiev, curators, as well as by ester coen, chartes harrison, and jill lloyd, this catalogue includes an anthology of quotes and writings by authors including baudelaire, poe, benjamin, le bon, simmel,freud, adorno, canetti, arendt, walt and buck-morss.