Exhibition of the week
Mike Nelson
Architecture and storytelling are the stuff of Nelson’s imaginative and absorbing installations. A Borgesian wizard.
• Tate Britain, London, 18 March-6 October.
Also showing
Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light
An eccentric but pleasant enough detour through the gardens of Seville in the company of the most famous Spanish artist at the dawn of the 20th century.
• National Gallery, London, 18 March-7 July.
Jeremy Deller
The creator of Acid Brass and The Battle of Orgreave returns to the history of the 1980s.
• The Modern Institute, Glasgow, 16 March-11 May.
Susan Derges
Images of moon worship haunt Derges’s response to the Renaissance symbolism of the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I.
• Queen’s House, Greenwich, 20 March-January 2020.
Emma Smith
Smith’s exhibition Wunderblock looks at the history of child psychology. Sigmund Freud’s final home is always worth a visit.
• Freud Museum, London, until 26 May.
Masterpiece of the week
Joseph With Jacob in Egypt, c 1518, by Pontormo
Fantastic architecture and psychedelic colours impose this painting on your imagination. It has a lot in common with Bosch and Bruegel in the way it creates a crowded dreamlike space for the mind to explore. The spiral staircase and slender tapering statues on columns concoct a wildly fictitious vision of ancient Egypt. In this unreal city, brightly clothed people congregate and consult. The pale grey earth and stone structures set off robes in hues of violet, emerald, bronze and crimson. Pontormo goes out of his way to stress the artifice and impossibility of this painted world where living statues float above people who are walking works of art. This is what the style known as mannerism looks like.
• National Gallery, London.
Image of the week
The Virgin With the Laughing Child, c 1472, by Leonardo da Vinci
Italian experts have decided this work is the only surviving sculpture by Leonardo, and not the work of another artist to whom it has been credited for decades. The news will delight London’s V&A Museum, to whose collection the sculpture belongs. It is currently on show in Florence, Italy, at the exhibition Verrocchio: Master of Leonardo, which examines the life and work of Leonardo’s artist mentor.
What we learned
Sir Anish Kapoor is upset by growing racism in Britain
Kara Walker will be Tate Modern’s next Turbine Hall artist
Ben Quilty is not Jesus, but he stands for something
Spring/Break takes an artful view of US politics
A Victorian decorator hid a secret William Morris interior
Photographer Alec Soth had a change of perspective
… while Paul Thompson sought aids to navigation
London commuters sit on treasures of fabric design
Architect Tom Brigden takes a valuable view of cities
Italian police foiled an art heist
Sotheby’s has banged its gavel for 275 years
The Other Art Fair is back in London
Fashion designer Lisa Gorman has learned from her mistakes
Dutch artist Julian Hetzel makes soap out of human fat
Photographer Maurice Broomfield saw grandeur in factory work
Royal portraiture reflects changing monarchy
Leicester museums are ditching their specialist curators
… while the V&A extended its Dior show
… and US museums are gearing up for Women’s History Month
The mystery of Three Well-Known Australians is still unsolved
A Norwegian hospital sees art as healing
Kirsty Mitchell’s best photograph was inspired by her mother
Toby Binder took a close look at the youth of Belfast
We got a glimpse of a Bristol that never was
Art historian John Richardson died at 95
We remembered Alessi designer Alessandro Mendini
… and wildlife artist Martin Woodcock
Don’t forget
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