1 Tracey Emin And William Blake
The raw reality of Tracey Emin’s My Bed is endlessly shocking. It is not so much the condoms, cigarette butts and empty vodka bottles as the sheer unvarnished factuality of a moment from someone’s existence permanently preserved that leaves you unsettled. My Bed is accompanied here by Blake’s images of souls in hell and the crucified Christ. Emin’s own drawings of a nude woman in agony and ecstasy hang well with his visions in a meeting of British genius old and new.
2 Djordje Ozbolt
The Holburne Museum reflects Bath’s rich cultural history with works including portraits by Thomas Gainsborough, one of Britain’s most sensual painters, who made money depicting people who came to take the waters and show themselves at the Assembly Rooms. Belgrade-born Ozbolt interrupts this fine collection of Georgian art with paintings that parody Gainsborough, giving 18th-century gentlemen surreal masks and unleashing Disney birds upon them. The cleverest thing about these paintings is the bizarrely lurid palette that pushes the colours of rococo art into the realm of theme-park kitsch.
Holburne Museum, Bath, to 5 Mar
3 Game Plan: Board Games Rediscovered
People have been playing games throughout recorded history and probably before. This ideal exhibition for the holidays not only surveys the history of board games but explores their surprising renaissance in the digital age with the success of the likes of The Settlers Of Catan.
V&A Museum of Childhood, E2, to 23 Apr
4 Memorial: A Tribute To Taxidermy
Taxidermy was once regarded as a scientific pursuit. Today its academic errors are renowned – all those anatomically inaccurate dodos – but this curious craft has become an art form in its own right. This exhibition by “ethical taxidermist” Jazmine Miles-Long explores how the Victorian stuffed specimens at the Horniman were created and what they can still tell us about the natural world.
Horniman Museum, SE23, to 1 May
5 Marcantonio Raimondi And Raphael
Raphael’s harmonious art is a miracle of mathematical and classical perfection. Yet he was innovative and experimental, too. Unlike most other Italian Renaissance artists, he took a big interest in printing. Raphael worked with the gifted Raimondi to create prints of his paintings that are among the earliest ever attempts to mechanically reproduce art.
