1 David Hockney
When David Hockney splashed into the swinging 60s in a gold jacket and pop art spectacles, he made more impact on the public than any British artist since William Hogarth. With his confident, funny and sexy early paintings of gay life, he helped to change British society. Then he went to LA and became its definitive painter of brainless palm trees in empty blue skies. Hockney is a truly popular artist yet also a sensitive and solitary one who has always followed his own visual curiosity, even when it led him back to his native Yorkshire to paint the landscapes of his childhood. This exhibition offers a bigger view of his richly pleasurable art.
Tate Britain, SW1, Thursday 9 February to Monday 29 May
2 Robots
This exhibition offers a serious historical view of one of humanity’s oldest technological fantasies. It’s also a lot of fun. The ancient Greeks dreamed of robots and Leonardo da Vinci built one. Automata were hugely popular in the scientific revolution while the coming of industry threatened to use human beings like machines. This history is explored in fascinating depth, plus there’s a scintillating array of state-of-the-art tech that reveals how close robotics is to creating autonomous digital beings.
Science Museum, SW7, Wednesday 8 February to Sunday 3 September
3 Disappearance At Sea – Mare Nostrum
Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans is among the artists attempting to draw attention to the plight of refugees crossing the Mediterranean in this exhibition hosted in collaboration with Amnesty International. Its use of the Latin term for the Mediterranean, meaning “our sea”, is a reminder that the waters crossed at such risk by today’s refugees have been a thoroughfare for centuries.
BALTIC, Gateshead, to Sunday 14 May
4 Michael Andrews
This is a must-see exhibition of a British artist who was Hockney’s equal in talent, if not fame. In the 1970s, Andrews used a spray gun to create eerily calm landscapes. His series Lights, in which a balloon moves silently across English landscapes, creates a mood of inexplicable poetry.
Gagosian Gallery, Grosvenor Hill, W1, to Saturday 25 March
5 Vanessa Bell
The most famous artist member of the Bloomsbury Group and sister to Virginia Woolf has long been a favourite of biographers, but how good are her paintings? The most palatable modern artists for the Bloomsberries were Cézanne and Matisse. That civilised concept of modern art can be seen in Bell’s sensitivity and feel for colour. Just don’t expect the shock of the new.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, SE21, Wednesday 8 February to Sunday 4 June
