Choice: Exhibition: Objects of Desire

Objects of Desire, Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London SE1 (0171- 960 4242)

Coxes, Worcesters and Granny Smiths. Say "still life" to most people and they'll say "apples", but there's less fruit in this huge show devoted to the modern still life than you'd imagine. As Tom Lubbock pointed out, this grand sweep of works from Cezanne to the present day from New York's Museum of Modern Art lacks a governing thesis. Treat it like a lucky dip, however - a handy walk-through history of modern art, if you will - and there are pleasures galore. Few people could complain about absentees. Cezanne, Picasso and Duchamp, Matisse and Magritte, Mondrian, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol - yup, the guys are all here. Everything, in fact, up to the lovely final exhibit, Wolfgang Laib's Milkstone, a large, low tray of pure white marble, filled up to the very rim with milk, so that what's solid surface and what's liquid surface are held in nearly indistinguishable stasis.