1 JMW Turner
The forces of nature become pure paint in the free and formidable art of Margate’s greatest visitor. Turner was sent from his native London to a school in this coastal town when he was 11 and returned regularly as an adult, especially after forming a relationship with his landlady Mrs Booth. His watercolours of Margate are at the heart of an exhibition that explores his exhilarating creation of worlds from violent yet subtle colour, influenced by his study of Goethe’s colour theory as well as his open eye for the brilliance of nature.
Turner Contemporary, Margate, to 8 Jan
2 The Somme
The desolation of the Somme haunts us still, a century after the battle that caused more than a million German, British and French casualties. The great German artist Otto Dix was a gunner at the Somme and portrays its terror with brutal honesty in his prints and paintings. The artists here, including Ingrid Barber, Helen Grey, Brandon Jackson, Karen Block and Reza Bagheri, take their lead from Dix to offer an unsanitised reflection on the mass slaughter.
3 Am I Rembrandt?
Rembrandt is one of the most personal, distinctive and expressive artists of all time, and yet the authorship of his paintings is hotly debated. The Rembrandt Research Project, started in 1968, set new standards for scientific art history and kicked many supposed paintings by Rembrandt out of his corpus. Now that project is over, what makes a Rembrandt? This exhibition focuses on the Self-Portrait Wearing A White Feathered Bonnet (1635) – finally proven to be the real thing in 2014 – in order to explore Rembrandt’s artistic identity.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, SE21, to 5 Mar
4 Karla Black And Kishio Suga
This exhibition brings together two sculptors of the everyday. In the late 1960s the Japanese art movement Mono-ha sought to juxtapose industry and nature. Kishio Suga, one of its veteran stars, translates the spiritual traditions of Japan into a modern sculptural language. Scot Karla Black, meanwhile, makes messy, sprawling installations of raw found stuff.
Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art, Edinburgh, to 19 Feb
5 Emma Hart And Jonathan Baldock
Punch and Judy is one of Europe’s oldest living cultural traditions. Its grotesque puppets and surreal violence make it good raw stuff for art. This ambitious installation revisits Punch and Judy in the age of cyber-bullying and promises a delirious trip inside Mr Punch’s monstrous world.
