Exhibition of the week
William Kentridge: Thick Time
Time and memory, history and politics are the stuff of the acclaimed South African animator’s recent works.
• Whitechapel Gallery, London, 21 September-15 January.
Also showing
Jannis Kounellis
Early works by one of the most beguiling artists of our time.
• White Cube Mason’s Yard, London, 23 September-29 October.
Mike Kelley
The late, great pop conceptualist replicates a kitsch landmark from LA’s Chinatown.
• Hauser and Wirth, London, 23 September-19 November.
Thilo Heinzmann
New works by this Berlin artist who puts painting at the centre of his experimentalism.
• Carl Freedman Gallery, London, until 22 October.
Suzanne Treister
“Outsider” art created in the name of a fictional banker called Hillel Fischer Traumberg by this painter turned digital artist.
• Annely Juda Fine Art, London, 22 September-29 October.
Brassed Off
The Civic’s gallery is split in two to host the 60 wind instruments that make up Cornelia Parker’s early sculpture Perpetual Canon, opposite The History of the World, Jeremy Deller’s graphic map of Acid House and ... brass bands.
• The Gallery at The Civic, Barnsley, until 19 November.
Masterpiece of the week
There’s an unexpected calm and gentleness to Europa’s wild ride on the back of a bull in this beautifully coloured baroque painting. To understand it you have to know that the bull in this Greek myth is really Zeus, king of the Gods. Reni makes the story a Christian allegory of the power of the divine, with Europa looking reverently heavenward.
• National Gallery, London.
Image of the week
“We’ve reached peak everything,” says photographer Edward Burtynsky in a new interview. See more of his startling images of landscape scarred by industry here.
What we learned
The Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture finally opens
Artists are reacting strongly to Brazil’s turmoil at the São Paulo Bienalle
Anish Kapoor is showing in the Chinese Biennale despite plans to boycoot for Ai Weiwei
Oslo Architecture Biennale tackles some hot topics with too much jargon
British artists Rebecca Moss has been left all as sea on a container boat
The north of England has seven of Britain’s top 10 endangered buildings
The late Richard Attenborough’s Picasso ceramics are going up for auction
Wifredo Lam shows himself to be the last of the true surrealists in Tate show
Out of South Africa: how politics animated the art of William Kentridge
Ursula Schulz captured these hauting images of Ottoman railway stations
Four early Rembrandts are being reunited at the Ashmolean in Oxford …
… while Constable’s cathedral is back in Salisbury for the first time in years
Patrik Schumacher is ready to take on his old boss Zaha Hadid’s mantle
Actor Alec Baldwin sues his art dealer over an $190,000 painting …
… but perhaps someone needs to give Baldwin a history of art lesson
Dream of steam? Then try out these hothouses at the London Design Festival
Victorian artists were truly inspired by the advent of telegraphy
Meet Peter Matthews, the artist who makes his work underwater
From Doug Aitken to Sarah Sze, artists talk about the need to protest
And finally, even Nick Serota was surprised by the success of Tate Modern
Get involved
L is for London: share your artwork now
Good thinking: your art on the theme of knowledge
Don’t forget
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- In last week’s newsletter we gave the wrong dates for Robert Motherwell at Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London – the show runs until 26 November.
