It is truly amazing how in this multi media age a sculpture can capture the simplicity and complexity of life and evoke profound reactions within you. I left the Tate Modern last Saturday inspired and in awe of how you can learn something about yourself from a sculpture.

Embarrassed by some spanish friends passion for exploring my own city I found myself at the spanish artist Juan Munoz’s retrospective at the Tate Modern at the weekend.

Room 10 of the retrospective called “Many Times” was like taking part in one of Will Schutz’s Human Element link micro-labs.

Imagine a room with 100 almost life-sized figures, all with the same facial features. They are standing in groups; some talking, some listening, some not really engaging, some looking away some ignoring each other and some laughing. As you wander amongst them its not so much what you think of the art so much as how you are made to feel in the presence of the “group”.

Watching visitors smile at the scale and quality of the thing, it was fascinating to see people apparently having different reactions as they moved through the exhibit.

If sculpture can provoke this reaction, it provokes two thoughts

How masterful Munoz is in his creation

How other people inform how we feel about ourselves

Group dynamic work through “micro-labs” became Will Schutz’s (link to who is) preferred way of building self awareness in people. In fact towards the end of his career he put aside psychometrics and just had fun creating and running these micro-labs so people could discover deeply held needs for inclusion, control and openness.

So I guess life does imitate art - or is it the other way round?