1 The Radical Eye
Photography is a 19th-century invention, but it was only in the 1900s that it became a medium for avant-garde vision. It took the modernist revolution in painting and the splintered perceptions of cubism to show photographers that the camera could do more than simply record the world. Here are the resultant experiments by Man Ray, Tina Modotti, Alexander Rodchenko and more, a pantheon of subversives who created images of liberating strangeness. This collection of their work has been assembled by Elton John.
Tate Modern, SE1, Thu to 7 May
2 Portrait Of The Artist
The artist as a person of inherent fascination is an idea we owe to the Renaissance: when Vasari published his book The Lives Of The Artists in 1550 he invented the artistic celebrity. This exhibition looks at the images of such personalities, from Artemisia Gentileschi, who painted her powerful muscular self-portrait when she worked for Charles I, to Leonardo da Vinci, whose portrait by his pupil Francesco Melzi is owned by the Queen.
Queen’s Gallery, SW1, to 17 Apr
3 Emma Hamilton: Seduction And Celebrity
When Sir William Hamilton, British envoy at the court of Naples, married his nephew’s former mistress he launched one of the great love stories of the Romantic age – but it didn’t involve him. Through her marriage, Emma Hamilton met the dashing naval hero Nelson and their passion enflamed the seas. Emma Hamilton’s beauty also captivated artists, especially George Romney who – as this exhibition shows – portrayed her with obsessive sensuality.
National Maritime Museum, SE10 to 17 Apr
4 Andres Serrano
No other artist of our time can match Serrano’s flair for shock. The man who created Piss Christ is now making us look torture in the face. His pictures of real-life torture victims (including Northern Ireland’s “hooded men”, subjected to extreme interrogation by the British army in the early 1970s), deploy the power of baroque art to dignify victims without concealing the violence they endure. These are modern martyrdoms.
5 Bellows And The Body
George Bellows was one of the US’s first modern greats, a visceral artist of the big cities in the early 20th century. The human body is at the centre of his tough, traumatic paintings; a body hardened by city life yet vulnerable to its harshness. This exhibition explores how his unique feel for the human form developed.
