Exhibition of the week
Animals and Us
This survey of animals and art from ancient Egypt to a video of cats playing Schoenberg that Cory Arcangel compiled from YouTube clips is by turns cute, moving and thought-provoking.
• Turner Contemporary, Margate, until 30 September.
Also showing
Giuseppe Penone
Trees in all their life-giving wonder are turned into sculpture by a hero of the arte povera movement.
• Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, 26 May until April.
Roman Dead
Romans buried symbolic artefacts with their dead, so this exploration of Londinium’s Roman graves is a peep at ancient life as well as death.
• Museum of London Docklands, until 28 October.
Katharina Grosse: Prototypes of Imagination
Splash and spectacle from this German artist whose paintings sprawl into and all over the real world.
• Gagosian Britannia Street, London, until 27 July.
Patrick Heron
The respected British abstract painter brings plenty of colour and light to match the big skies of St Ives.
• Tate St Ives until 30 September.
Masterpiece of the week
The Wolf of Gubbio, 1437-44, by Sassetta
Saint Francis of Assisi shakes hands with a wolf in this magically innocent and fairytale-like scene. Townspeople gather nervously outside the gate of their walled community to see the preacher reconcile human civilisation and savage nature. Gubbio in Umbria, goes the legend, was so terrorised by a wolf that its people retreated inside their city walls. Then Francis went up to the beast and persuaded it to respect the peace of God. Sassetta shows the gruesome heap of body parts the wolf has chewed up on the edge of a woodland whose neat appearance belies its wild dangers. A scribe is noting down the details of the contract Francis has brokered between town and predator. Peace be with you, Brother Wolf.
• National Gallery, London.
Image of the week
Kesh Angels, girl biker gang of Morocco
Hassan Hajjaj took this photograph of female bikers in front of Marrakech’s Theatre Royal in 2010. “Although I was born in Morocco, I spent part of my childhood in England, so have a different perspective on my country. I like to push buttons,” he said. “Here, I wanted to play with the way a veiled woman riding a motorbike might seem jarring from a western perspective. I called them Kesh Angels, with Kesh short for Marrakech and Angels from Hell’s Angels.”
What we learned
American artist Jerry James Marshall is riding a $21.1m wave
Artists’ mini masterpieces are going on sale – from 65p
Egon Schiele and Francesca Woodman make strange bedfellows
The Venice Architecture Biennale is one to sit and enjoy
Young Somalis are remodelling their capital
Life was good to acclaimed photographer Larry Burrows
David Chipperfield will not get his Nobel prize
US footballer Brandi Chastain put on a brave face as her sculpted likeness was unveiled
Robert Indiana found Love everywhere
Antony Gormley returned to Cambridge
Harry Jacobs spent five decades capturing the Windrush generation
Emma Clarke sees signs of change in Dublin
Life looks different from the rooftops of Hong Kong
Sotheby’s uncovered another pot of gold
Don’t forget
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