Exhibition of the week
Ken Price
This terrific artist creates wildly imaginative and addictively colourful ceramic sculptures and drawings. They bring a bit of Californian warmth into the depths of winter.
• Hauser and Wirth, London, from 9 December until 4 February.
Also showing
Anselm Kiefer
A remarkable installation by the greatest artist of our time, that is just as impressive as his retrospective at the Royal Academy.
• White Cube Bermondsey, London, until 12 February.
Maino’s Adorations
A timely display of two powerful Spanish paintings of the Nativity story.
• National Gallery, London, until 29 January.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year
This year’s most beguiling nature photographs by professionals and amateurs, drawn from almost 50,000 competition entries.
• Natural History Museum, London, until 10 September.
William Kentridge
An outstanding and memorable survey of recent work by one of today’s most significant artists.
• Whitechapel Gallery, London, until 15 January.
Masterpiece of the week
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin’s The House of Cards (circa 1736-37)
A boy playing cards is observed with cool, subtly coloured precision. The painting’s fascination with the simple details of physical existence is typical of Chardin’s profound art of the material world.
• National Gallery, London.
Image of the week
New York artist Leo Villareal has been announced as the winner of a design competition for London’s £20m Illuminated River project, which will see the bridges of the Thames lit up at night. His design involves a “rhythm of light”, reacting to the movement of pedestrians and the tides, in a colour scheme of blues, purples, whites and golds. The final £10m now needs to be raised for the project.
What we learned this week
Helen Marten won the Turner prize, to add to her Hepworth …
… and Adrian Searle was delighted …
Martin Creed released a beautifully bleak Christmas song
Sean O’Hagan picked his top 10 photography exhibitions of the year
Artists like Richard Prince are trying to help update marijuana’s stoner image
The first ever Cézanne portrait exhibition is coming to London, Washington and Paris
Artists are worried about evictions in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland
Ribera’s painting The Bearded Woman, from 1631, remains a powerful statement about gender fluidity
The first retrospective of Wynford Dewhurst, “Manchester’s Monet”, opens this week in Manchester
The terracotta warriors of China will return to the UK in 2018
The Wellcome Collection’s exhibition Making Nature gets to the heart of how we think about animals
Morgan Quaintance asks: why is the Turner prize failing to engage with politics?
Timelapse images from Google create a disquieting picture of our planet
Get involved
Book now for two Guardian members’ events: Rodin and Dance: The Essence of Movement, at London’s Courtauld Gallery on 18 January; and Insider’s View of Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans, at London’s Royal Academy on 20 January.
Our A-Z of Readers’ Art series continued this week, looking at your artworks with the theme N is for North Sea – check out the best entries here.
We’ve also launched the theme for next month: O is for Oracle. Send in your artworks with that theme, and the best will be exhibited in next month’s gallery.
Don’t forget
To follow us on Twitter: @GdnArtandDesign
