1 Lockwood Kipling: Arts And Crafts In The Punjab And London
Where did Rudyard Kipling get the imaginative response to the Indian subcontinent that makes The Jungle Book an enduring classic? It began with his father Lockwood, the first principal of National College Of Arts in Lahore, still Pakistan’s leading art college. This exhibition explores the life of an artist, designer and educationalist whose fame has been overshadowed by his son’s.
Victoria & Albert museum, SW7, to Sunday 2 Apr
2 A Certain Kind Of Light
The importance of light in art may seem something of a tautology, since no images would be visible without it. But – from Rembrandt’s almost tangible shadows to James Turrell’s psychedelic chambers of colour – the ways artists use, create and represent light are manifold and magical. Contrasts of brightness and shadow in painting, architecture or sculpture use light to shape space and release emotion as works in this show by David Batchelor, Garry Fabian-Miller, Ceal Floyer, Gary Hume, Anish Kapoor and more reveal.
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, Saturday 21 Jan to Sunday 7 May
3 Bouchra Khalili
Maps and journeys are the themes of this French-Moroccan artist, not least in The Mapping Journey Project, a multi-channel video projection that charts the epic travels of migrants who cross borders illegally. Their voices tell of their desperate journeys, which are simultaneously mapped out on screen. In The Constellation Series these same journeys are depicted as migrations across the sky.
Lisson Gallery, NW1, Friday 27 Jan to Saturday 18 Mar
4 Lubaina Himid
This retrospective of Himid’s paintings – along with concurrent shows of her work at Spike Island, Bristol and Nottingham Contemporary – reveals the subversive ways in which she has put black experience into western art history since the 1980s. It includes her 1984 work Freedom And Change, which reimagines Picasso’s Two Women Running On The Beach, as well as lesser-seen paintings that range across history with a great sense of wit and provocation.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, Saturday 21 Jan to Sunday 30 Apr
5 Sylvie Franquet
Rich and strange reworkings of classic art and fleshy sculptures fill this curious exhibition by a Belgium-born artist. Crazy colour, exuberant craft skills and lots of words make her take on art history lively and entertaining. Millet’s Angelus and Titian’s Venus Of Urbino are among the masterpieces remade as kitsch embroideries that tell personal stories of love and loss.
October Gallery, WC1, to Saturday 28 Jan
