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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Jonathan Jones

A takeover in Swansea and a phallic Antony Gormley – the week in art

New Metamorphosis (2022) by Adam Charlton, part of On Your Face: Queer Reflections at the Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea.
New Metamorphosis (2022) by Adam Charlton, part of On Your Face: Queer Reflections at the Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea. Photograph: Adam Charlton

Exhibition of the week

On Your Face: Queer Reflections
A queer takeover that deconstructs this gallery’s “largely heteronormative” collection and opens new ways of seeing art.
Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea, until 18 September

Also showing

Alan Davie
Trenchant, memorable abstract paintings by Scotland’s answer to Jackson Pollock.
Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, until 24 September

Alan Davie: Mama Idol, 1976.
Alan Davie: Mama Idol, 1976. Photograph: Courtesy Dovecot Studios

Known and Strange
Surrealistic contemporary photographs by artists including Dafna Talmor, Mitch Epstein and Maurizio Anzeri.
V&A, London, until 6 November

The Woodpecking Factory
A close look at Victorian wood engravers the Brothers Dalziel, who helped the pre-Raphaelites reach a wide audience.
British Museum, London, until 4 September

Image of the week

The Captured House. Daria Koltsova

These clay heads by Daria Koltsova are part of The Captured House, an exhibition of the work of around 50 Ukrainian artists, all made during and about the war. Koltsova escaped via Moldova to to Palermo, where she began making a head for each Ukrainian child whose death made the news. The exhibition has opened in Brussels and intends to tour globally as part of a Ukrainian diplomacy drive. Read the full story here.

What we learned

The gender price gap in the art world is truly shocking

Antony Gormley’s latest proposed public sculpture may (but may not) have a three metre phallus

Edinburgh art festival has something for every art lover

The portrait of a tyrannical governor of Trinidad which was removed in the wake of BLM protests is back on view in Wales

French graphic artist and painter Jean Jullien has returned to the beaches and countryside of his youth

The vibrant work of the Ghanaian-born, London-based photographer James Barnor captured another side of the swinging 60s

Danish photographer Krass Clement has rediscovered 1990s Belfast

Paul Lowe’s best work captured a moment of innocence during the siege of Sarajevo

The Female in Focus photography award captures the many faces of womanhood

Masterpiece of the week

Saint Jerome in Penitenceby Sodoma (1477-1549)

St Jerome in Penitence, c 1534-45, by Sodoma
The Renaissance artist Giovanni Antonio Bazzi got his nickname Il Sodoma because he was said to be a “sodomite”. There were no equivalents in pre-modern language for terms such as gay or queer. Homosexuality was equated with the mortal sin of sodomy and yet, in Italy at least, there was leeway for alternative sexualities. Leonardo da Vinci was accused of sodomy but let off, and rumoured to love his assistants. As it happens, there are echoes of the Tuscan polymath in this painting: Leonardo, too, had portrayed a naked ascetic Jerome. There’s no proof Sodoma was gay but this muscular painting does have a deep feeling for the male form, and the very fact an artist could get such a reputation without it hurting his career is telling about the openness of Renaissance Italy.
National Gallery, London.

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