Exhibition of the week
Kehinde Wiley
Barack Obama’s official portraitist responds to the National Gallery’s landscape paintings with video art and five new canvases.
• National Gallery, London, until 18 April
Also showing
Prix Pictet
Christian Marclay, Sally Mann, Carla Rippey and more show photographs on the theme of fire.
• V&A, London from 16 December to 9 January
Josef Albers
The early works of this legendary abstract artist show him as an expressionist of the human figure.
• Cristea Roberts Gallery, London from 10 December to 22 January
Suzanne Lacy
Socially engaged art on themes from young people to older women’s work prospects in Manchester.
• Whitworth, Manchester until 10 April
Zadock Ben-David
An installation with more than 17,000 hand-painted flowers features in this exhibition about our relationship with nature.
• Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Kew Gardens, London until 27 March
Image of the week
American conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner has died aged 79 of cancer. Weiner had an overriding contempt for commercialism, and used words as his chief material. Read the full story here.
What we learned
Conceptual art pioneer Lawrence Weiner has died aged 79
A hidden sketch by Rembrandt has been discovered underneath the paint of his most famous work
An exhibition showcasing three Asian American artists was acclaimed as a revelation
An American billionaire has surrendered 180 looted and illegally smuggled antiquities valued at $70m
How René Magritte’s high-lo sensibility transformed the world’s understanding of images
Sudanese artists are battling to maintain their freedom of expression after the recent coup
RIBA’s royal gold medal went to India’s most acclaimed architect Balkrishna Doshi
A Manchester exhibition is honouring the multifarious, contradictory talents of Derek Jarman
For the first time, a split decision saw three artists win Australia’s richest art prize
Portraits of North Omaha’s people reveal the impact of white supremacy on the lives of Black people …
… and the work of forgotten Japanese American photographers is receiving long overdue recognition
Masterpiece of the week
Rembrandt’s Adoration of the Shepherds, c1652
Has any Nativity painting ever been as expressive and moving as this miraculous etching? The cosy stable scene has given way to a much harsher and starker reality. A humble and deferential group of shepherds emerge from the night to salute a Christ child cuddled under blankets by a mother who looks homeless. Rembrandt makes free with black ink to create shades and depths of nocturnal mystery. The figures emerge in rough-etched lumpen humanity from this gloom. A lantern seems to truly glow, simply by contrast. Each face, in shadow or light, holds your heart in as marvellous a portrayal of fragile humanity as exists in art.
• British Museum, London
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