[KarlMalone]

National Gallery puts on a peep show with Mark Wallinger's nude Diana

The room is in complete darkness. As you fumble your way around, eventually you become aware that at the centre of the space is a room within a room, a second structure. You feel your way around it, and finally you find a window. The glass is opaque, but a corner of it is broken, and you place your eye against it. You can see into a bathroom. D****d in an armchair, or soaping herself in the bath, or cleaning her face at the mirror, is a naked woman caught in a live act. As you move around the outside of the room, you find other apertures: you stoop down to look through a keyhole, or peer through a chink in Venetian blinds. It is an utterly strange experience that turns the visitor into a voyeur, a peeping tom....

There are six participants in the Wallinger artwork, each called Diana in real life, because, he said, the name itself carries such a strong residue of mythology, up to and including that object of prurience and voyeurism Diana, Princess of Wales. Wallinger's Dianas were found, he said, through female acquaintances and Twitter. "In a funny way, the first three especially have already formed something of a sisterhood." At its preview viewing, the woman in the bathroom was wearing only jewellery – a way of "making the naked seem more naked," said Wallinger, who talked of Manet's masterpiece Olympia, in which a woman lies on a couch nude but for a necklace, bracelet and ornaments in her hair.