It’s 40 years since Impressions Gallery opened in York with the an exhibition by a then unknown Martin Parr. Now shifted to Bradford, Impressions celebrates middle age in style. Huw Davies and Tim Smith record working-class life along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and in Sheffield’s concrete high rises. Regretfully, they don’t make photos like these any more but, thankfully, society has moved in a more positive direction.
Impressions Gallery, Fri 28 Sep to 5 Jan
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Image by Tim Smith Photograph: PR
In layer upon layer of impasto and glazed oils, Hughie O’Donoghue has consistently tackled heavy themes: the relationship between human desire and the forces of nature, mortality and even the redemptive possibility of semi-religious suffering. This 30-year retrospective of his work shows naked figures emerging as they’re being excavated from the earth. In reproduction the work can look over-generalised and mannered. But when seen in the flesh, his looming surfaces tend to come on all shiny, clogged with sticky matter and temptingly tactile. O’Donoghue courageously treads a narrow line between drama and melodrama and should be applauded for it.
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Fri 28 Sep to 22 Dec
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A Moment's Liberty V (2012), by Hughie O'Donoghue Photograph: PR
While landscape sculptors like Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy redefined sculpture by adapting the techniques of kids making sandcastles, the artists here play at cutting-out and unorthodox origami. Yet, beneath the appearance of childlike indulgence, elements of deepening experience begin to emerge. Kara Walker’s silhouetted dreams are troubled by collective memories of slavery and exploitation. Tom Gallant’s William Morris wallpaper barely conceals oblique flashes of porn. Then, the most renowned paper-play artist of all – Rob Ryan – exhibits a maddeningly intricate three-metre single paper cutout.
Manchester Art Gallery & Gallery Of Costume, Thu 4 Oct to 27 Jan
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Map Of My Entire Life, by Rob Ryan Photograph: Rob Ryan
Don’t be taken in by the candy-coloured surface of Darbyshire’s work. His sculptures and installations ape contemporary design’s friendly face, while closing in on some unsettling signs of the time. He’s recently focused on new apartment blocks whose exteriors are jazzed up with cladding in sherbet hues masking building sites. Here he continues to expand T Rooms, his fictional village, with a labyrinth of banners housing artworks by artists and writers who share his interest in urban planning and design. The dance between surface and substance continues in a sound piece featuring six covers of Atomic Kitten’s Whole Again, by the likes of folkies Alexander Tucker and Lucy Farrell.
Zabludowicz Collection, NW5, Thu 4 Oct to 16 Dec
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Standardised Production Clothing Versions 1-5 (2009), by Matthew Darbyshire Photograph: Stephen White
Nicole Eisenman is an artist who’s never played by the rules. Since the 90s her drawings and paintings have put the styles and subjects sanctified by an art historical boys’ club – from Renaissance masters to Degas and Picasso – to uproarious use. Her earliest works included depicting Penelope Pitstop as a classical chariot driver, attended to by semi-nude female mechanics. She’s since expanded her riot grrrl critique to include the full spectrum of modern life: from dumping by mobile phone to beer-garden alienation. Her vision can be arch and gut-wrenching. This show is a first, as she puts aside painting for sculpture, with giant figures made from plaster and wood.
Studio Voltaire, SW4, Sat 29 Sep to 1 Dec
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Untitled (2012), by Nicole Eisenman Photograph: PR
Simon Warner’s miniature film projections of the surrounding South Pennine Moors infiltrate the Brontës’ former residence like so many hauntings. Reflecting the intimate scale of their personal possessions and the tiny books in which they dreamed up vast adventurous worlds, Warner’s landscape films effectively reintroduce an almost furtive air of moody wilderness into the sobriety of the parsonage. Ways To The Stone House is accompanied by a display lamenting the progressive ruination of Top Withins (the moorland inspiration for Wuthering Heights) in archival images ranging from atmospherically romantic Bill Brandt and Fay Godwin photographs through to a touchingly casual sketch made by poet Sylvia Plath on her first pilgrimage to the area in 1956.
Brontë Parsonage Museum, Fri 28 Sep to 3 Dec
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Ways To Stone House, by Simon Warner Photograph: PR
rAndom International (the odd capitalisation is how they like it) are one of those collectives billed as working at the intersection of art, architecture and design, which usually means technical wizardry mixed with a conceptual edge. The trio of German and British designers’ previous projects include giant LED lights that turn dancers’ bodies into 3D luminous reflections. You might want to pack a brolly for their latest interactive installation, Rain Room, as rAndom International’s precipitation comes with a twist. The constant showers filling the Barbican’s Curve gallery work in response to movement, giving visitors the unique impression of being able to control the weather.
Barbican Centre: The Curve, EC2, Thu 4 Oct to 3 Mar
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Rain Room (2012), by rAndom International Photograph: James Harris
Baffling and beguiling in equal measure, Jean-Luc Moulène has constantly switched between medium, materials and subject, changing gear from the banal to the extraordinary. The French artist’s “opus”, as he calls them, have slipped between slick and scruffy, from shining metal to such everyday fare as fire hose, plastic water bottles or Lycra. Here he turns simple knots into objects of strange fascination, casting them in bronze, or as twists of coloured glass, resembling sweet jellies or glistening hearts. A new film, tackling one of the great subjects of classical mythology, The Three Graces, suggests yet another shift.
Modern Art Oxford, Sat 29 Sep to 25 Nov
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Blown Knot 6 3/2, by Jean-Luc Moulène Photograph: PR
